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Hoffman and Beach ; 



THEIR 



' LIVES AND SERVICES. 



[itlt ijiourapliicnl ^Iietcks 



OLIVER BASCOM, DAVID B. McNEIL, 
AND EDWIN O. PERRIN. 



BEING A FULL AND OOMPl.ETE HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CAREER 
OF THE CANDIDATES (JN THE DEMOCRATIC STATE TICKET. 



^m farfe: 



PRINTED BY THE NEW YORK PRINTING COMPANY, 
81, 83. AND 85 Centre Street. 

i 1868. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 



OF 



JOHN T. HOFFMAN 



AND 



ALLEN C. BEACH, 



THE 



DEMOCRATIC NOMINEES FOR GOVERNOR AND 

LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF THE 

STATE OF NEW YORK. 

ALSO, 



J-P 



A RECORD OF THE EVENTS IN THE LIVES OF OLIVER 

BASCOM, DAVID B. McNEIL, AND EDWIN 0. 

PERRIN, THE OTHER CANDIDATES 

ON THE SAME TICKET. 



HIRAM CALKINS AND DE WITT YAN BUREN. 



NEW YORK: 

THE NEW YORK PRINTING- COMPANY, 

81, 83, AND 85 Centre Street. 
1868. 



■^1: 



CONTENTS 



JOHIV T. HOFF]yiAI¥. 

PACK 

I.— Early Life 3 

II. — Career as Recorder 6 

III. — Re-election as Recorder, and his Second Term 15 

IV. — Nomination and First Election as Mayor 23 

V. — Nomination for Governor, and the Canvass of 1866 30 

VI.— Events and Speeches in 1867 54 

VII.— The Fall Campaign of 1867 63 

VIII. — Re-election as Mayor 71 

IX. — Second Nomination for Governor 89 

X. — John T. Hoffman as a Man and Orator 93 

AL,LEM C. BEACH. 

Boyhood Struggles 95 

Success in Life 97 

OLIVER BASCOI«. 

Nominee for Canal Commissioner ' 106 

DAVID B. McWEIIi. 

Nominee for State Prison Inspector 108 

EDWIi\ OSCAR PERRIW. 

Nominee for Clerk of the Court of Appeals 110 



E R R A T A 



Two or three technical errors have been overlot)ked in the haste of arrang- 
ing the documents for the Sketches. 

On page 8. it should read ''New York," instead of " White Plains." 

On page 51, " in and about," instead of " inside." 

On page 59. should read "acts and deeds," instead of "actual deeds." 

On page 79, in speech. " the nomination of President," sliould read " the 
assassination of the President." 

On page 97, should read "Mi.^s" Pickering, instead of "Mrs." 



JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

Hoffman's early life. 



The name of Hoffman has long been familiar to every Democrat 
in this State. It is a name which has for a quarter of a century, at 
least, been associated with the traditions, identified with the history, 
the growth of our State, and the struggles of the Democratic party. 
On almost every page of its history tliis name is to be found, and, 
like that of Seymour, occupies a foremost position on all occasions. 

The branch of the Hoifman family from which the present nomi- 
nee for Governor sprang is, however, more noted for its triumphs 
in scientific and professional walks of life, rather than in the politi- 
cal iield. It has been as prominent in the social as the other branch has 
been in the political world, but with the present generation it bids 
fair to excel in its political triumphs also. 

Pliilip Livingston Hoffman, the grandfather of the subject of our 
memoir, resided for a number of years in Columbia county of this 
State. He was educated to the law, but never devoted much of hLs- 
time to that profession. At an early age he married Helena Kissam,, 
who belonged to one of the most noted families in that section, and 
whose name will also be recognized as belonging to one of the oldest 
families of the city of New York. Here are linked the names and 
blood of the Livingstons, Hoffman, and Kissam. Thus were associa- 
ted names not only illustrious, but which are remembered with affec- 
tion by our oldest citizens, as among the most valuable members of 
early society, and the founders of many public charities and works of 
benevolence. 

This union was blessed with three sous : Adrian Kissanai Hoffmnn,, 
fiither of the present Democratic nominee for Governor ; Dr.. 
Richard K. Hoffman, who was extensively known in his- profession, 
and Avhose death six or seven years ago was universally lamented ; 
and Charles O. Hoffman, for a long time member of the firm of 
Fellows, Hoffman & Co., well-known merchants of this eity. 

1 



4 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

The father of the subject of this memoir was born while tbe fmiily 
resided in Columbia county. They subsequently moved to Mont- 
gomery county. It was there that Adrian Kissam Hoffman com- 
menced his studies, preparing himself for the medical profession. 
Having concluded his studies, and received his diploma. Dr. Hoffman 
married the daughter of Dr. Thompson, of Galway, Saratoga county, 
and entered upon the practice of medicine at Sing Sing, We8tcbester 
county. He soon became celebrated in his profession, and was widely 
known and universally respected, not only for his skill as a physician, 
but also for his character as a man. 

On January 10th, 1828, was born their son, John Thompson Hoff- 
man, the subject of our biography. One of his first instructors out- 
side of his family was one of the Primes of the New York Ohserver. 
Soon after Mr. Hoffman's first election as Mayor, his first teacher pub- 
lished an article in the Observer^ in which he alluded to liim in the 
following language: — 

" More than thirty years ago, I w^as teaching in the Academy at 
Sing Sing. We had pupils learning their letters and those fitting for 
college and business. Among the former was the lad who became 
Mayor of the City of New York on the first day of the present year, 
John T. Hoffman. He learned his letters and to read at my knee. 
*****. While yet a student he won some reputation as a 
public speaker. But his calm self-possession, independence of associa- 
tion, and deliberate judgment, with great firmness of adherence to 
conclusions reached after careful examination, were qualities so rarely 
developed in a young man that he early attracted attention as one in 
whom high trusts could be safely confided. * * * * I take no 
credit to myself for his career. The man at the head of the school, my 
father, had exalted ideas of justice, and inculcated in his daily instruc- 
tions those notions of stern integrity, the inflexibility of principle, 
the abstract^ duty of doing right irrespective of expediency, that go 
to make up the character of every really great man." 

Under these teachings and under such examples the boyhood of 
John T. Hoffman was spent until he was ready to enter college. He 
showed that he possessed a studious mind, in foct that it was too vig- 
orous for his body. The result was that he was retarded in his 
studies, and on two or three occasions obhged to abandon his books 
and forget his tasks until he could strengthen his body. But in 
spite of these disadvantages he made rapid advancement, and won 
many flattering prizes at the academy in his native town. 

In the fall of 1843 he entered Union College, at Schenectady, as a 
member of the junior class. Here he again applied himself with all 
his characteristic industry, and grappled with the increased studies that 
were heaped upon him with all the vigor that marked his preliminary 



EARLY LIFE. 5 

course. The exertion was too gveat, and he found himself obliged 
during the following year to relinquish his studies for a time and 
devote himself to recuperating his health and strength. Under the 
advice of physicians he entirely abandoned his books for a year. 

Early in the autumn of 1845 here-entered college greatly improved 
in health. With close application and his usual industry, he soon 
overtook those who had been pushing forward during his temporary 
withdrawal. His career at college Avas a successful one, taking front 
rank among his fellow-stndents, not only in his studies but also as an 
orator. His success in all these particulars was fully equal to the 
most sanguine expectations of his friends. He, in fact, displayed, 
while in college, great self-possession, firmness, and adherence to con- 
clusions reached, and graduated with high honors in 1846, 

Soon after leaving college, Mr. Hoffman entered the law office of 
Gen. Aaron Ward and Judge Albert Lockwood, at Sing Sing, and 
there commenced the study of law. The exciting political events of 
that day attracted his attention to politics ; while the struggles 
which were then taking place between the Hunkers and Barnbui-ners, 
the Hards and Softs in the Democratic party, were carefully examined 
by hira. During each campaign he was found on the stump in his 
native place, advocating the cause of the Democracy. His affiliations 
were with the Hunker, or Hard Shell, wing. In 1848, Avhen he was 
but twenty years of age, he was placed on the State Central Commit- 
tee of one of the Democratic factions, then called the Hard Shell 
Democracy. An address was issued by this committee which 
attracted considerable attention for the ability in which the questions 
at issue were handled. Mr. Hoffman on this, as on all other occasions, 
advocated adherence to the nominations of the party, and although 
not a voter, spoke in favor of the election of Lewis Cass for President 
and Chancellor Walworth and Charles O'Conor on the State ticket. 

On the 10th day of January, 1849, his twenty-first birth-day, he was 
admitted to the bar, and commenced immediately to practise his pro- 
fession. 

During the following October he removed to the city of New York, 
and soon after entered into a law partnership with the late Samuel 
M. Woodruff and William H. Leonard, the fiim name being Wood- 
ruff, Leonard & Hoffman, office in Wall street. The same indus- 
trious habits that marked his course while a student were again devel- 
oped in business, while his eminent ability and marked probity in all 
his dealings soon drew to him a large practice, and at the same time 
secured the confidence of those who sought his assistance or counsel. 

His first connection wdth politics in this city was with the Young 
Men's Tammany Hall Committee. He connected himself Mith this 
committee about 1854, and was one of its most active members. He 



6 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

became a member of Tammany Society in 1857, and two or three 
years later was selected member of Tammany General Committee. 
His connection with Tammany Hall, therefore, took place at the 
very period when its struggles were the greatest and the feuds the 
most bitter. He was there to witness the struggle for the control of 
that organization between Fernando Wood, Lorenzo Shepherd, and 
Isaac Fowler, the squabble between the Small and the Savage Com- 
mittee for regularity, the "Witter Committee, the Cooper Committee, 
and the Westchesterites, all names familiar to those who took part in 
political aftairs at that time ; but he did not become prominent in the 
organization, except as a member of the Young Men's Committee, until 
after Fernando Wood had seceded from Tammany and set up poli- 
tical business for himself by organizing Mozart Hall. 

Mr. Hoffman had gained such prominence as a lawyer, as well 
as in the councils of the Democracy, that in the latter part of the year 
1859 he was generally pressed for the important position of United 
States District Attorney. But President Buchanan could not be per- 
suaded that Mr. Hoffman was not too young for the position of such 
importance. In the contest that ensued, Judge Roosevelt was ap- 
pointed. 

Mr. Hoffman was married in 1854 to a daughter of Henry Stark- 
weather, one of the most respectable families of this city. He has one 
child, a girl of about fourteen summers. 

He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church ; attends at St. 
Ann's Church, in 18th Street, in which he was formerly a vestryman ; 
is a man liberal in his religious views, and free from tlie fanatical con- 
ventionalities of the day. 



CHAPTER II. 

HIS CAREER AS RECORDER. 

The first office ever held by Mr. Hoffman was that of Recorder, 
the most responsible judicial office in the metropolis, to which he was 
elected in November, 1860. 

This position he never sought, nor had he any idea that his name 
was to be presented to the convention until the morning of the day 
on which that body assembled. He was on that morning waited 



HIS CAREER AS RECORDER. 7 

upon by a committee beaded by Nelson J. "Waterbury, and asked if 
be would accept the nomination of Recorder. He promised to give 
an answer at 3 o'clock that afternoon. Mr. Waterbury and asso- 
ciates returned at that hour, when Mr. Hoffman informed them that 
he could not be a candidate. They then asked if he would write a 
letter stating that fact. He replied that he had no objection ; wrote 
the letter, and placed it in the hands of those gentlemen. 

The convention assembled in Tammany Hall in the evening, and 
among the names presented for the nomination for Recorder were 
those of John T. Hoffman, Abraham D. Russel, Robert Livingston, 
and C. Bainbridge Smith. There were three ballots ; the second 
being declared informal. 

The vote on the first ballot stood : 

John T. Hoffman, 45 

Abraham D. Russel, 65 

Robert Livingston, 17 

C. Bainbridge Smith, 12 

The second ballot being destroyed on some informality, it was 
never known how the vote stood, but on the third ballot John T. 
Hoffman received 108 votes, and Judge Russel 64 votes. His nomi- 
nation was then made unanimous. The letter which he had written 
was not presented nor made known to the convention, nor any portion 
of it. 

The first that Mr. Hoffman knew that he had been nominated was 
when he saw the announcement in the morning papers the next day. 
Upon the earnest solicitations of his friends, he finally concluded to 
accept the nomination. His principal opponent in the convention 
was subsequently nominated by Mozart Hall, and ran against Mr. 
Hoffman, while the Republicans placed in nomination Thomas B. 
Van Buren. 

The vote on election-day stood as follows : 

John T. Hoffman, 39,606 

Abraham D. Russel, 17,667 

Thomas B. Van Buren, 36,110 

Mr. Hoffman thus received over twenty-one thousand more than 
the Mozart candidate, and about four thousand more than the Re- 
publican nominee. 

The striking peculiarity of this vote is more easily seen by com- 
paring it with the votes for the other candidates on the same ticket ; 
not one of the other Tammany candidates at that election was suc- 
cessful, except those who had an endorsement, and were nominated 
by some of the other Democratic factions ; Mr. Hoffman was the only 
candidate of Tammany who succeeded without the assistance of out- 



8 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

side organizations. This shows that he was at that day stronger than 
Tammany. 

In the office of Recorder he conducted himself with dignity, im- 
partiality, and tact, and at once took a high and honorable position. 
No person ever filled that office with such universal satisfaction as 
did Mr. Hoffiiian. The high order of his ability, and his eminent 
qualifications for that office, at once became manifest. None so 
young had ever been selected to discharge its duties, and not one 
made a more distinct and enviable impression upon the public mind. 
He proved in all respects a just judge; upright, inflexible, calm, dig- 
nifiecl, and conscientious in all his decisions. Never hasty in discharg- 
ing that most important duty, administering justly our criminal law, 
but ever dignified, cool, and profoundly impressed with the responsi- 
bihty of his position. 

His unflinching devotion to the aims of justice won him the esteem 
of all law-abiding citizens, irrespective of party. No previous Re- 
corder brought to the discharge of his high official duties more 
strength of character, breadth of intellect, profound legal knowledge, 
and steady determination of purpose, than John T. Hofl'man. His 
charges to juries, and his sentences to criminals, are of a higher stamp 
than the usual utterances of most of our judicial officers on such occa- 
sions. There is a strong religious sense of right about them; and 
they also carry along with them the duty of upholding law and order, 
and vindicating the majesty of the former. His remarks on such occa- 
sions were always marked with the delicate touches of humanity that 
belong to a person of sound mind and possessing a kind heart. They 
have about them all the true ring of the fearless, incorrupt, and 
upright judge. 

During his first term as Recorder, Judge Hofiinan delivered several 
im2)ortant opinions regarding the rights of citizens and the welfare of 
communities. One of the most important of these is embodied in a 
charge to the Grand Jury of the Court of General Sessions at White 
Plains, Westchester county^ December 22, 1862. The charge was 
prompted by the reported violation of the State laws against kidnap- 
ping. It is a most em])hatic and incisive opinion against the infamous 
system of arbitrary arrests adopted by the Government during the 
war, and is substantially as follows : — 

COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS BEFORE RECORDER HOFFMAN". 

The Grand Jury of this Court were sworn in on Monday morning', James W. 
Underhill, foreman. Previous to his Honor's charging the jury, Mr. District 
Attorney Hall requested the Recorder to call .S2iecial attention to kidnajaping and 
abduction. Mr. Hall remarked that a number of comi^laints of this nature had 
been filed in his office. After some preliminary remarks upon the ordinary topics 



niS CAREER AS RECORDER. 9 

to which the Court is required to call the attention of the Grand Inquest, 
Recorder Hoffman made the following important obseiTations upon illegal 
arrests, which will be read with interest by every citizen of this State : 

At the close of the last week the District Attorney requested me in my charge 
to you to-day to give you special instructions in relation to the laws of this State 
against kidnappmg. He intimated to me that cases had been brought to his 
notice in which it was alleged these laws had been violated, and which he would 
probably feel bound to submit to you for your consideration and action. Having 
repeated that request to-day, I deem it my duty to give you the desired instruc- 
tions, and I shall do so briefly and yet pointedly. It is so generally reported and 
believed that for many months past numbers of persons have, without any law- 
ful authority, been seized on and removed from this State against their will, that 
great importance attaches to the sitbject under consideration. At the same time 
it is so generally understood that these seizures and removals have been made 
under some claim or pretence of lawful authority that it becomes necessary to 
deiine and state the law with care, so that all who will may understand it. 

That law, as I shall now state it, will, I think, commend itself to the good 
sense of all those who will examine it with unbiassed judgment, and will be the 
law of this court while I preside in it, until reversed, if reversed it ever shall be, 
by some higher tribunal. The Constitution of the United States, and the Con- 
Btitution of the State of New York, have guaranteed to aU citizens the security 
of their persons against unlawful seizures, and the laws of this State have in 
substance declared that whoever shall violate this constitutional ^larantee shall 
be deemed guilty of a felony. The statute provides (vide Revised Statutes, 5th 
edition, vol. 3, page 943, section 30) as follows, viz. : Every person who shall, 
without lawful authority, forcibly seize and confine any other, or shall inveigle 
or kidnap any other, with intent either : 

1. To cause such other person to be secretly confined or imprisoned in this 
State against his will ; or 

2. To cause such other person to be sent out of the State against his ^vill ; or 

3. To cause such other person to be sold as a slave, or in any way held to 
service against his will, shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment in 
the State Prison, not exceeding ten years. 

Whoever within this State arrests a person charged with an offence alleged to 
have been committed therein against the laws, either of the State or of the 
United States, is bound to convey the person so arrested, without delay, before 
the proper magistrate or other judicial officer within the State, to be dealt with 
according to law. Any seizure of the person of a citizen for any other purpose 
is without lawful authoiity, and any detention or confinement of a person so 
arrested, for any longer time than may reasonably be required to convey him 
before such magistrate or officer, is also without authority of law. 

The removal of any person from this State into any other State or Territory, 
to answer to any charge of having committed here an offence against the laws of 
either the United States or the State, is without authority of law ; and every 
person, whether he be an officer or jirivate individual, who .shall seize and confine 
any person whomsoever, charged with having committed any crime within the 
State, with intent either secretly to confine or imprison him here, or to remove 
him out of the State against his will, acts in violation of the statute I have just 
read to you, and renders himself liable to indictment and imprisonment. Upon 
the trial of such indictment, the fact that such seizure, confinement and removal 
was by order of the President of the United States, of any member of his Cabinet, 



10 JOHN T, HOFFMAN. 

or other officer of the Government, will constitute no legal defence. Neither 
the President, nor any member of the Cabinet, or other officer (not judicial), has 
any lawful authority to order the seizure, or imprisonment, or removal from the 
State of any citizen of the State for any offence whaixjver committed, or alleged 
to have been committed, within its borders. I need hardly add that the arrest 
and imprisonment of any person not charged with any crime, no matter by whom, 
or by whose order the same is made, is in violation of the Constitution and the 
law. The Constitution of the United States declares that in criminal prosecu- 
tions the accused shall have a speedy trial by juiy in the State or district where 
the crime shall have been committed ; and the seizure of any person, and his 
removal against his will from his State or district, is in violation of this provision 
of the Constitution, and, in the eye of our statute, without " lawful authority." 
There are constitutional and statutoiy provisions in relation to fugitives from 
justice. When an offence has been comrnitted, or is alleged to have been com- 
mitted, in another State, and when the offender has fled into this State, provi- 
sion has been made by act of Congress, in conformity with and obedience to 
constitutional requirements, for his an-est and return to the State from which 
he has escaped. In such cases the Government of the State in which the offence 
is alleged to have been committed may make a requisition upon the Governor of 
this State, accompanied by the necessary proofs ; and upon such requisitions the 
Governor of this State may issue his warrant for the arrest of the fugitive, by virtue 
of which he may be seized and returned to the jurisdiction from which he has fled. 
In this way, and in no other, can he be lawfully seized and conveyed out of 
the State. Any person, whether he be an officer or not, who shall seize and im- 
prison an alleged fugitive from justice (except to await a requisition), acts with- 
out lawful authority ; and if he shall seize and detain him against his will, with 
intent secretly to imprison him here, or to remove him out of the State against 
his will, excei^t upon such requisition and warrant, he is giiilty of a violation of 
the statute I have read to you, and is liable to indictment and imprisonment. 
Upon trial of indictment the fact that he acted by order of the President, or of 
the Government, will constitute no legal defence. These, gentlemen, are plain 
propositions of law, which cannot be disputed, applicable to our loyal 
State, in which the State Courts are in almost uninterrupted session, 
in which judges and magistrates are faithful to their oaths to support the 
Constitution of the State and the Constitution of the United States, in 
which the laws are ample for the punishment of all offenders as well as the 
protection of all citizens — a State in which the Federal Courts are in ses- 
sion, with all their machinery in full ojieration, their judges and marshals and 
deputies ready to perform their duties, whose process can always be enforced, 
and whose judgments and decrees can always be executed — a State in which the 
acts of Congress are never resisted, and whose people venerate and respect the 
Constitution and the laws. In such a State, so circumstanced, not being the 
scene of actual military operations, not even an army within its borders, nor even 
any soldiery, excepting such as may be on their way to light the battles of 
the Constitution and the Union, whose laws are not obstructed nor defied ; where 
no form of the " law martial " can, by any construction, be made applicable to any 
person not mustered into " military service," it is my duty, as a judge, to declare 
to you that the seizure of her citizens, their secret imprisonment against their 
will, their removal from beyond her borders, without authority of law, to an- 
swer to criminal or other charges, their confinement in places beyond the reach of 
legal process, is in violation of the rights secui'ed to them by the Constitution 



HIS CAREER AS RECORDER. 11 

and by the laws, and it is the right and solemn duty of the Grand Jury to indict 
any person or persons who have in these respects offended against the law. I 
have now, gentlemen, discharged my duty. I leave you, under the obligations 
of your solemn oath, to the performance of yours. It may not be possible, to 
prevent entirely the arbitrary and unlawful seizure and removal of the citizens of 
our State ; but it is possible to convict and punish those who in this respect shall 
be found guilty of a violation of our la^s. 

But the most iiniiortnnt official act of Jurlge Hoffmnn, during his 
career as Recorder, was manifestly his charge to the Grand Jury in 
the Court of General Sessions in the case of tlie July rioters, delivered 
August 4, 1863. The story of those terrible days is too familiar to 
people in this city and State to require repetition. Retributive jus- 
tice, with quick and certain footsteps, overtook the authors of that 
terrible mischief. Through the industry and perseverance of District 
Attorney Ilall, the leading actors in the bloody scenes of the July 
riots were arrested, and their cases brought before the Grand Jury. 
The Recorder's charge to that body was one of the wisest, most fear- 
less, conscientious, and dignified judicial warnings ever uttered by a 
public judge. Its high character and convincing justice werq at once 
commended by all respectable classes, regardless of party opinions. 
Republican presses and Republican orators vied in extolling the con- 
duct of Recorder Hoffman as in the highest degree praiseworthy. A 
Republican clergyman (Dr. Osgood), in his Sabbath pulpit, thanked 
"God for the honesty of purpose and high-toned justice which ac- 
tuated Judge Hoffman," and declared it to be " a great consolation 
to us to know that there is such a man to administer justice among 
us." 

This charge indisputably proves the law-abiding and order-loving 
qualities possessed by John T. Hoffman. It also proves that he is 
fully equal to an emergency requiring so much firmness and wisdom 
as did the jjrosecution of the July rioters. Below, the charge is pre- 
sented in full, its great importance and appropriateness forming the 
only excuse for republishing a document of such length : 

Gentlemen of the Grand Jury. — The solemn and impressive oath which 
has just been administered to you indicates, and clearly, the duties which the 
law devolves upon you, and the manner and spirit in which you are expected 
to discharge them. I trust each one of you fully api^reciates the responsibility 
of his position — never gi-eater than at the present time ; and I ask your careful 
attention to a few suggestions which, in obedience to the requirements of the 
law, as well as the necessities of the occasion, I feel bound to make. "When you 
retire to the Grand Jury room, your first duty will be to jierfect your organiza- 
tion by the selection of one of your number as clerk, whose duty it will be to 
keep a brief record of all your proceedings. Having done this, you will proceed 
promptly and industriously to investigate all cases of crime which have occurred 
within the jurisdiction of this court, and which may be brought to your knowledge. 



12 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

It is made my duty by law to call your attention specially to all offences against 
the Excise and Usury laws, the laws passed to preserve the purity of elections, 
the laws forbidding lotteries and the taking of illegal fees by public officers, and 
the law passed in 18G0, to prevent frauds in the sale of tickets upon steamboats 
and other vessels. It is also my duty to inform you that it is a misdemeanor for 
any Grand Juror or officer of the court to disclose the fact of an indictment hav- 
ing been found for felony against any ]§erson not in actual confinement, until 
such person shall be arrested. In a great city like this, gentlemen, crime always 
abounds, and criminals of every grade and degree are always to be found. With 
the exception of several minor offences, no crime can be punished, no criminal 
can be brought to justice and to judgment, without the preliminary action of the 
Grand Jury. You stand between the prisoner and the State, and it is for you to 
see that impartial justice is done to each. 

The court opens this month, gentlemen, with an unusual large calendar. For 
a short period succeeding the commencement of the present war, the number of 
crimes committed in this city was very materially diminished ; the prisons were 
less crowded, and the business of this court was less bvu'densome than usual. 
This state of things was attributable to various causes ; but it was manifest to 
my mind that it would be but temporary. So it has been. For some months 
past crime has been on the increase — offences against the person and offences 
against property rivalling each other in frequency. Beyond all this, a general 
spirit of lawlessness has been spreading through the community. One of the 
worst signs of the times has been the prevalent disregard of, and want of resi^ect 
for, the laws and the lawfully-constituted authorities. Dangerous men — danger- 
ous because powerful and influential — have by example and precept taught the 
people to disregard and disobey constitutional and legal obligations, and, some- 
times upon one pretext and sometimes upon another, have countenanced (if 
they have not counselled) disobedience and resistance. They have aimed their 
shafts not only at legislative enactments and constitutional provisions, but at 
the officers of the law — the judges of the land and the decisions of the courts. 
As in time of war every man becomes a military critic, and sits in judgment 
upon the operations of our army and the plans of a campaign, so every one has 
become an expounder of the Constitution and the laws, and assumes to sit in 
judgment upon the judicial tribunals of the State and nation. The people have 
become accustomed to look upon Constitutions and laws and authorities as less 
sacred than in earlier days they had been taught to believe they were. The 
pulpit and press, the political platform and Senate chamber, the social circle, 
and perhaps even sometimes the courts themselves, have been the schools in 
which these pernicious lessons have been taught. Manifestations of jjopular 
violence, sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another — sometimes against 
men of one set of opinions, and sometimes against those of another — have from 
time to time occurred in this city and elsewhere. When applauded, they have been 
applauded loudly; when condemned, they have been condemned feebly. Now one set 
of partisans and now another have spoken of them as " just outbreaks of popular 
indignation," or "patriotic uprisings of the people." Conservatives and pru- 
dent men have watched the growth of this evil with alarm, and foreseen and 
dreaded the harvest. They saw that it was in violation of and in hostility to 
the fundamental principles upon which all government and all society rest. They 
have sought to remind those in authority, and those having influence, that it 
was their solemn duty to inspire the peoj^le with resjiect for all law by never 
deviating from it themselves, and to make the people understand that obedience 



HIS CAREER AS RECORDER. 1<5 

to law was the first duty of the citizen. They have proclaimed that, as there 
was no safety for the nation except in a faithful adherence to the Constitution, 
so there was no security for the people but in unbending respect for and obedi- 
ence to the laws and the authorities of the land. Warning the legislative power 
of the State and nation against the enactment of unconstitutional laws, they 
have insisted and ever will insist that the courts, and not the people, arc to sit 
in judgment upon the constitutionality of an act, and that, until declared by 
the courts to be unconstitutional, resistance to it by force and violence is criminal. 

These warnings have not been heeded. The evil teachings of misguided and 
wicked men have not been withovit theii- effect ; they have taken deep root in the 
popidar mind. Infidelity to constitutional and legal obligations has produced its 
brood of evUs. This infidelity, and the false teachings and examples of partisans 
of various sects and parties — aided as they have been by causes and elements 
which are always actively at work in times of war and civil convulsions — urged 
on by the spirit of lawlessness which they have created, have recently produced 
in this city an outbreak which resulted in violence and enormities without a 
parallel in the history of the country. The immediate cause of this was oppo- 
sition to the enforcement of the conscription law ; but this cause wordd have 
been wholly inadequate to the result, if the poison of constitixtional and loyal infi- 
delity and of false teaching and pernicious example had not been infused into the 
popular mind. The outbreak was fearfiil — its results dreadful. AMiatever may 
have been the cause, and whoever may have been responsible for the terrible con- 
sequences, one thing is certain : the plea of resistance to the draft affords no 
justification or excuse, and it is the duty of every public officer and every private 
citizen to labor with all his strength to bring to justice and to judgment the men 
who have violated all law, outraged all decency, and trampled upon all rights. 
It is very clear that the mob, originating as it did with the single object of resist- 
ing the draft, soon came under the control of ruffians and outlaws. Those who 
first participated m it probably did not contemj^late the results which followed. 
Yet they were inevitable. The elements of every mob, no matter what may be 
its original object or design, are anarchy and ruin ; and the one which has so 
lately disgraced this city has given evidence of this by puttmg in peril the lives 
and propei-ty of innocent people, by burning oqAan asylums, burning and plun- 
dering private residences, sacking stores and warehouses, robbing citizens ujion 
the public streets, and committing murders too horrible to record. 

Can the plea of resistance to the draft afford any excuse for such enormities 
as these ? Do not those who entered upon those scenes of violence, with no other 
object than to destroy enrolments and delay the execution of a law to the pro- 
visions of which they were opposed, shiidder at the results which they have been 
instrumental in producing ? Can one honest man be found in this community 
who, after the experience of the last few weeks, does not in his heart condemn, 
this day, the whole theory of violent resistance to law ? Does not every man in 
this great city, high or low, rich or poor, this day realize, with ten times more 
force than ever before, that this appeal shall be to the courts — not to violence — 
that there is no safety for the citizen or the State but in a rigid obedience to the 
laws, in a profound respect for the constituted authorities of the land, and in a 
determined maintenance and preservation of order and luiblic peace, at all times, 
under all circumstances, and at all hazards — and that without all these there is 
no security for home or famUy, property or life ? You must pardon me, gentle- 
men, for detainmg you so long. 

I have made these suggestions with a definite object and purpose. I tnist 



14 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

they may not be wholly without effect. "Whatever we may be able to do as in- 
dividuals in allajang pojiular initation, and in removing or counteracting, as far 
as may be just and proper, the causes which produce it, let i^s unite in doing 
with all the ability we possess. We stand here, however, to-day, not as individ- 
uals, but as public officers, charged with grave responsibilities. Let us not shrink 
from them. Let us remember that we are not partisans, but sworn officers of 
the law, determined at all hazards to enforce the law and preserve order, to pro- 
tect the innocent and to punish the guilty. It is our duty to teach all men that 
those who bum asylums and houses and stores are guilty of arson, and shall be 
punished for that offence ; that those who plunder and appropriate to themselves 
other men's goods upon the highways or elsewhere, "with or without violence, as 
the case may be, become subject to and will suffer the penalties affixed to the 
crime of robbery or larceny ; that a rioter is an enemy of society and an offender 
against the law, and that the punishment for murder is death. Doing this, we 
shall be discharging our public duties ; failing to do it, we shall be false to our 
consciences and our oaths. 

Gentlemen, the prisons are full of persons charged with crime. I call ftpon 
you to examine every case fearlessly, fairly, and impartially ; let no prejudice or 
passion influence you ; deal honestly, do justly. Be especially cautious in con- 
sidering evidence of identity ; upon this point mistakes may easily be made. 
Every man is presumed innocent until proved guilty. In our determination to do 
promi^t and speedy justice, let us earnestly strive that no injustice shall be done. 
However excited and violent others may be, we must be cool and careful. Let us 
bring no disrespect upon the law or the courts by either too much or too little 
zeal. In maintaining law, let us not trample upon it ; in sustaining justice, let 
us not violate it. When you have presented to this court indictments against 
those whom you believe to be guilty, they shall be brought to a speedy trial be- 
fore a petit jury, and, if convicted, shall be promptly sentenced to suffer the pen- 
alties of the law. 

In conclusion, let me say, we have no time to be idle. Every consideration 
demands that all of us should work diligently. The press of business is great. 
I must urge upon you to remain in session as many hours each day as the Dis- 
trict Attorney may desire. Personal convenience must yield to public necessity, 
and public necessity demands of you and of me and of every officer of the Court 
untii-ing labor and devotion. Let us, therefore, labor diligently, each in his pro- 
per sphere striving to do all he can toward preserving the public peace, restoring 
the i^ublic confidence, and meting out prompt and speedy justice to all offenders 
against the laws. 

Delivered Aug. 4, 1868. 

It was during tliis term that his firm decisions in reference to the 
low order of concert saloons secured for him the endorsement of the 
public generally. 

On the 25th of June, 1862, Recorder Hoffman rendered a decision 
in a case where indictment had been made for publicly keeping spir- 
itous liquors for sale on Sunday. In his decision be narrowed the 
argument to two considerations, viz., whether under the law of 1860 
the " pubUcly keeping" of liquors on Sunday is made a misdemeanor, 
and whether tlie facts specially alleged constituted in law such public 
keeping. The Recorder elaborately reviewed both the law and the 



EE-ELECTION AS RECORDER, AND HIS SECOND TERM. 15 

facts, and concluded that there was nothing in the law of 1 800 expres- 
sive of an intent to make violation of the clause relating to Sunday 
observance a criminal oftence. Concernmg the second consideration, 
that was beyond his jurisdiction, and a question for the civil 
courts. 



CHAPTER III. 

EE-ELECTION AS EECORDEK, AND HIS SECOND TEKJI. 

The course of Mr. Hoffman as Recorder drew to him the universal 
approbation of the public without regard to parties. Before the close 
of his term, or on the 12th of October, 18(33, the Republican Judiciary 
Convention of this city assembled to make nominations for the several 
judicial offices to be filled at the election that fall. When the office 
of Recorder was reached, Charles S. Spencer's name was presented as 
a candidate. Mr. Spencer immediately withdrew his name, and in a 
speech eulogizing Mr. Hoffman, he declared him " one of the purest, 
ablest, and one of the most upright and conscientious public officials 
that was ever elected to an office in this city." 

Other speeches were made by Republicans present, endorsing Mr. 
Hoffman in equally strong terms, when he was nominated by accla- 
mation. The following committee was appointed to notify him of his 
nomination: John Sedgwick, Waldo Hutchings, John H. White, Ira 
O. jMiller, Guy R. Peltou, and Frederick Olmstead ; all prominent in 
that party. 

In discharging this duty, the committee addressed Mr. Hoffman the 
following letter : — 

U^^ON Headquarters, No. 630 Broadway, ) 
New York, October 22, 1863. ' 

Sir : — The undersig^ned have been appointed a committee by the Union Judi- 
ciaiy Convention, to inform you that on the 1st instant you were unanimously 
nominated by that Convention as its candidate for Recorder of the City of New 
York. 

The committee were instructed further to declare, that the nomination was 
made for the reasons that your judicial judgments have been impartial and tmin- 
fluenced by partisan considerations ; that the manner in which you have per- 



16 JOHX T. HOFFMAN. 

formed yoixr official duty demands your re-election, and that you have been 
neither doubting nor cold in the supjiort of the national cause. 
We have the honor to be, your obedient servants, 

John Sedgwick, ChaiiTQan. 
Waldo Hutchings. 
John H. White. 
Ika 0. Miller. 
Guy R. Peltox. 
Frederick Olmstead. 
To the Hon. John T. Hoffman. 

The week following his nomination by the Republican convention, 
the Tammany Hall and Mozart conventions both met, and also nom- 
inated him. This secured to him the endorsement of every conven- 
tion and party, except a small faction known as the McKeonites. On 
election-day be received 60,000 votes out of the 64,000 polled for that 
office. This was a tribute of respect and confidence such as never 
before was shown to any official, and proves conclusively that his offi- 
cial conduct during his first term was universally endorsed through- 
out the city. 

This marked approval on the part of the people, would in most cases 
have caused egotism on the part of the recipient almost unendurable. 
But it had no such effect upon Mr. Hoffman. He looked upon it 
simply as an approval by the people of conscientious acts. In conver- 
sation with him about this time, we remarked " that he had made a 
lucky hit, and secured both fame and popularity at a very early age." 
To this he replied, " It is a very easy matter to obtain both. All 
that is necessary is for a man to conscientiously do his duty, and not 
allow himself to be swerved from what is right and just, and he will 
find that popularity and fame come of itself" 

His second term as Recorder was characterized by the same un- 
swerving devotion to his duties, to justice, and the administration of 
the laws, as well as the same singleness of purpose in upholding the 
interests of the city, as that which marked his previous term. 

One of the most important features of this term was his opinion in 
the Arguelles case. Robert Murray, United States Mai-shal, and 
others, had been indicted by the Grand Jury for the forcible seizure 
and confinement of Arguelles, in violation of the laws of the State 
against kidnapping. The case attracting attention in all parts of the 
country, an effort was made to take it out of the State and city courts, 
and transfer it to the United States court. Mr. Hoffman's opinion, 
denying the motion to transfer the jurisdiction of this case to the 
United States court, contains several logical conclusions upon the 
rights of the people and of States that have peculiar significance at 
this time. 



RE-ELECTION AS RECORDER, AND HIS SECOND TERM. 17 

Hoffman, Recorder. — The defendants have been indicted bj' the Grand Jury- 
in and for the city and county of New York, for the forcible seizure and confine- 
ment of one Arguelles, in violation of the laws of the State of New York ag-ainsfc 
kidnapping. 

To this indictment no plea has been interjiosed by the defendants ; but under 
the provisions of section five of chapter eighty-four of the laws of the Thirty- 
seventh Congress, they have presented a petition to this Court, stating that the 
act complained of was done by order of the President of the United States, and 
asking for that reason that the indictment may be removed from this Court into 
the United States Circuit Court for trial. 

Section 4, of the Act of Congress referred to, i^rovidcs that any order of the . 
President, or under his authority, made at any time during the existence of the 
present' rebellion, shall be a defence in all Courts to any action or prosecution, 
civil or criminal, for any search, seizure, arrest or imprisonment, made, done, or 
committed, or acts omitted to be done, under and by virtue of such order, etc., 
etc. , and that such defence may be made by special plea or under the general 
issue ; and sec. 5 of the Act under which this application is made is as follows : 

" Sec. 5. And be it further enacted. That if any suit or 'prosecution,' ' civil ' 
or ' criminal,' has been or shall be commenced in any State Court against any 
ofiicer, civil or military, or against any other person, for any arrest or imiirison- 
ment made, or other trespasses or ' wrongs ' done or committed, or any act 
omitted to be done, at any time during the present rebellion, by virtue or under 
color of any authority derived from or exercised by or under the President of the 
United States, or any Act of Congress, and the defendant shall, at the time of 
enteiing his appearance in such Court, or if such appearance shall have been 
entered before the passage of this Act, then, at the next session of the Court in 
which such suit or ' prosecution ' is pending, file a i^etition, stating the facts, and 
verified by affidavit, for the removal of the cause for trial at the next Circuit 
Court of the United States, to be holden in the district where the suit is pend- 
ing, and offer good and sufficient surety for his filing in such Court, on the first 
day of its session, copies of such process and other proceedings against him, and 
also for his appearing in such Court, and entering sjiecial bail in the cause, if 
special bail was originally required therein. It shall then be the duty of the 
State Court to accept the surety and proceed no further in the cause or ' prose- 
cution,' and the bail that shall have been originally taken shall be discharged. 
And such copies being filed, as aforesaid, in such Court of the United States, the 
cause shall proceed therein in the same manner as if it had been brought in said 
Court by original process, whatever may be the amount in dispute or the 
damages claimed, or whatever the citizenship of the parties, any former law to 
the contrary notwithstanding." 
*** ****** 

I will not now discuss the character of this most remarkable legislation. At 
the proper time, and in the proper place, it will, I trust, receive the con.sidera- 
tion and construction which it merits. The question of its constitutionality, 
except so far as it affects the question of the transfer of the indictment to the 
courts of the United States, is not involved in this motion, and I shall not 
exaipine here any question but the one at issue. Upon the argument of the 
motion the counsel for the defendant asserted that if the indictment should be 
removed to the United States Circuit Court, and a trial should be there had, 
followed by a conviction, that the Judge of the United States Court could 
sentence the defendant under the laws of the State of New York to suffer the 



18 ' JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

punishment prescribed Tiy those laws, and that the power to pardon would rest 
in the President of the United States. 

If these assertions were well founded we should have the strange picture 
presented of a United States judge administering the penal laws of the State of 
New York, and the President of the United States extending a pardon to one 
convicted of a crime against the laws of that State, which had been committed 
by his own order. Such a result would seem to be more appropriate to an act 
entitled "An act to prevent the punishment of any man who shall commit a 
crime by order of the President of the United States." 

But I think these assertions of counsel are not well founded and cannot be 
.maintained. 

There is no authority for saying that a jiidge of a United States Court could 
sentence a criminal in i^ursuance of the laws of a State. Those judges have no 
powers except such as are conferred upon them by the laws of the United States, 
under the Constitution of the United States. Congress has never conferred upon 
them the power to pass any sentence upon any criminal offender against the laws 
of a State. Even the act of 1863 is wholly silent upon the subject, and no pro- 
vision to that effect had ever been made before, because (if for no other reason) 
no one, until 1863, ever contemplated that a Court of the United States 
would ever be called upon to try offenders against the criminal laws of a 
State. 

If then this indictment was transferred, and the defence that the act com- 
plained of was done by the order of the President of the United States should 
fall, and the defendant should be convicted, no judgment whatever could follow 
upon that conviction. 

Again, if a judgment could follow, no pardon cotdd be extended to the offender ; 
the President of the United States could not pardon, for the reason that the 
offence is against the laws of the State, and not against the laws of the United 
States ; and section two of article two of the Constitution of the United States 
confers upon the President the power to pardon and reprieve only for offences 
against the United States. 

That it did not confer upon the President the power to pardon offenders 
against the laws of a State, if convicted in a United States Court, is, perhaps, a 
good argument to show that the framers of that Constitution never contemplated 
that an offender against the laws of a State should be tried in the Courts of the 
United States. 

The Governor of the State of New York could not pardon, because this power 
under the Constitution of the State clearly relates only to cases of conviction in 
the Courts of the State. It is very clear the framers of that Constitution never 
contemplated that any other Courts would be clothed with power to enforce the 
State's penal laws. 

Again, section 6 of the Act of Congress above mentioned i^rovides that any suit 
or prosecution described in that act, in which final judgment may be rendered in 
the Circuit Court, may be carried by writ of error to the Supreme Court, what- 
ever may be the amount of the judgment. The closing words of this section 
show that it relates only to civil, suits or proceedings, and not to criminal, and it 
is the only provision on that subject in the act. 

Now, it is well settled that the judgments of the United States Circuit Court 
in crimiual cases are final, and the Supreme Court possesses no appellate jurisdic- 
tion iu such cases. (U. S. v. Moore, 3 Cranch, 159 ; ex parte Kearney, 7 Wheaton, 
38 ; ex parte Watkins, 3 Peters, 193.) 



RE-ELECTION AS RECORDER, AND HIS SECOND TERM. 10 

It is only in cases where the Circuit Judges are divided in opinion that the 
case can be brought before the Supreme Court (Act of April 20, 1802). 

If, therefore, this indictment remains in this Court, and a question under the 
Act of Congress of 18G3 shall arise, in the progress of the cause, the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, could 
ultimately review the judgment of this Court, and pass upon the constitutionality 
of the law in question. 

If, on the other hand, it is transfei*red to the United States Circuit Court, the 
question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the law of Congress 
cannot be submitted to the adjudication of the Su^jreme Court of the United States. 

These suggestions are, in my judgment, material to the question under con- 
sideration, because they tend to show, in the first place, that, although the words 
of the Act of 1803 are very broad, yet Congi-ess could hardly be considered to 
have intended (even if they had the power to do so) to confer jurisdiction upon 
the United States Court to try, in the first instance, an indictment found in a 
State Court, inasmuch as they have wholly neglected to provide any way in 
which that jurisdiction could be exercised, and on which the case could be prose- 
cuted to judgment and execution. And inasmuch as the effect would be to 
deprive the Supreme Court of the appellate jurisdiction, in the exercise of which 
it could reverse the judgment of the State Court if the indictment was not 
removed. 

In the second place, the suggestions tend to show that, even if Congress did 
so intend, it is not only an instance of legislation not contemplated by the Consti- 
tution of the United States, but is so improvident and incomplete that no Courts 
can give effect to it. 

II. But, independent of these suggestions. Congress has no power, in my judg- 
ment, to confer upon the United States Court jurisdiction to try indictments 
found in the State Courts. 

The case of Jones v. Seward, decided in the Supreme Court in this district, is 
no authority ia this case. I need not pause to state the difference in the two 
cases. They are wholly unlike. 

The argument of the defendant's counsel is, that, u^jon the trial of this indict- 
ment, the consideration of a law of the United States wiU be involved — that in 
every case arising under the laws of the United States the Courts of the United 
States have apiiellate jurisdiction to reverse the judgments of the State Courts, 
and that, in all cases to which this appellate jurisdiction extends, Congress has 
the power of conferring original jurisdiction. In support of this he quotes the 
dictum of Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of Osborn v. The United States 
(9 Wheaton's Reports, 821), which is as follows: " AVe perceive no grounds upon 
which the proposition can be maintained, that Congress is incapable of giving to 
the Circuit Court original jurisdiction in any case to which the apijcllate juris- 
diction extends." 

"VATiatever Chief Justice Marshall has said is entitled to the greatest respect, 
and I should hesitate about refusing to assent to it, if I could not issue a warrant 
for such refusal in his own recorded declarations. I do not find such warrant in 
his opinion in the case of Cohens v. Virginia (AATieaton's Reports, 2(54), in which 
he says : '" It is a maxim not to be disregarded, that general expressions, in 
every opinion, are to be stated in connection with the case in Avhich these expres- 
sions are used. If they go beyond the case they may be respected, but ought 
not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit, in which the very point is 
presented for decision." 

2 



20 JOIIX T. HOFFMAN. 

Now, in the light of this maxim, I propose to show that what Chief Justice 
Marshall said in the case of Osbom has no application to and is no authority in 
the case now under consideration. 

The Bank of the United States sued Osbom in the United States Circuit 
Court, by authority of its charter, which was under an act of Congress, and 
which gave the United States Courts original jurisdiction of suits by and against 
the bank. The Court decided that that proAdsion in the charter was warranted 
by the third article in the Constitution, which declared that the judicial power of 
the United States should extend to all cases arising under the Constitution and 
' ' the laws of the United States. " Judge Blarshall said : " This suit is a case, and 
the question is, whether it arises under the laws of the United States ;" and soon 
after he says : ' ' The Constitution enumerates cases in which the jurisdiction of 
the United States Courts is original and exclusive, and then defines that which 
is appellate," and he adds as follows: 

"It is not insmuated that the judicial power, in cases depending upon the 
character of the cause, cannot be exercised in the fixst instance in the Courts of 
the Union." 

And then he uses the words cited by defendant's counsel, and soon after uses 
this all-important language : 

"We think then, that when a question, to which the judicial jiower of the 
Union is extended, forms an ingredient in the original cause, it is in the power 
of Congress to give the Circuit Courts jurisdiction of that cause, although other 
questions of fact may be involved in it. The case of the bank is, we think, a 
very strong case of this description. The charter of incorporation not only 
creates it, but gives it every faculty it possesses." 

" This being (meaning the bank) can acquire no right, make no contract, bring 
no suit, which is not authorized by a law of the United States." 

" Can a being thus constituted have a case which does literally, as well as sub- 
stantially, arise under this law ? " 

And in another place he says : 

" The act itself is the first ingredient of the case — its origin." 

It was 'under such a state of facts, and in such case, that Judge Marshall gave 
utterance to the dictum quoted by the defendant's counsel. It was applicable 
to such a case, and to every case where a question arising under an act of Con- 
gress is involved "in the character of the cause," " forms an ingredient of the 
original cause," exists in its very inception, and without the consideration of 
which the cause cannot proceed a single step. 

It has no application to a case in the origin of which neither the Constitution 
or laws of the United States are involved, and in which a question involving 
action may never arise, or if it does, can only arise ''in the progress of the 
cause." 

In the case of Cohens «. Virginia, above cited, we find Chief Justice Marshall 
furnishing an authority upon this point, when he says, as follows : 

" That the Constitution or a law of the United States is involved in a case, 
and makes a part of it, may appear in the progress of a cause in which the 
Courts of the Union, but for that circumstance, would have no jurisdiction, and 
which of consequence could not originate in the Supreme Court. In such a case 
the jurisdiction could only be exercised in the appellate form." 

In the same case. Judge Marshall says : " The original jurisdiction of the 
Supreme Court, where a State is a party, refers to those cases in which juris- 
diction might be exercised in consequence of the character of the party, and an 



RE-ELECTION AS RECORDER, AND HIS SECOND TERM. 21 

original suit might be brought in any of the Federal Courts. Not to those cases 
in which the original suit might not be initiated in a Federal Conrt of the last 
description, in every case between a State and its citizens, and perhaps every 
case in which a State is enforcing its penal laws. In such cases, therefore, the 
Supreme Court cannot take original juri.sdiction." 

It needs no arg\-iraent to show the application of the.se words of Jndge Marshall 
to the case now under consideration — a case in which '' the Stat* of New York is 
seeking to enforce its penal laws," and which could not have been instituted in 
the Courts of the Union. A case in which a question under a law of the United 
States may never be presented at all, or, if it should be, can only be "in the 
progress of the cause." For an indictment by the People of the State of New 
York against one of its citizens for an offence against its penal laws does not in- 
volve in itself any question under any law of Congress. If such question should 
ever arise, it could only be on the progress of the defence. If it should then 
arise, and a decision should be adverse to the law, the Supreme Court of the 
United States would, in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, reverse the 
judgment of the State Courts. If it should not arise, then the Courts of the 
United States could have no jurisdiction at all. 

The Recorder tlien proceeds to quote from eminent legal authorities 
to susuiin his position, closing his opinion as follows : — 

It is not enough that an Act of Congress gives the United States Circuit Court 
jurisdiction. It can have no jurisdiction which is not conferred by the Consti- 
tution, avS well as the law. 

The construction which I contend for is, I think, just and reasonable. It se- 
cures to the State all its rights, and it secures to the Federal Government all it 
needs, and all it has any right to demand. Id secures to the State its right, in 
the first instance, to i^rosecute all offenders against its laws in its own Courts, 
and to insure them punishment in case of conviction. 

It secures to the Federal Government the right to review, in its Supreme 
Court, the judgment of the State Courts in all cases where a defence to an in- 
dictment arises under an Act of Congress, if such defence should be overruled 
by the State Courts. If the judgment of the State Courts was erroneous, it 
would be reversed. If it was not, it would be affirmed, and the case would be 
remanded to the State Court for judgment. 

On the other hand, the construction of the Constitution contended for by de- 
fendant's counsel woiild deprive the State Courts of all power and right to 
enforce the Federal laws of the State in all cases in which Congress should un- 
dertake to declare what should be a defence to them. 

It would subject the penal laws of a State to the will of Congress. It would, 
under the Act in question, entitle any criminal indicted in our Courts for any 
offence to allege that he acted by order of the President, and to claim the re- 
moval of the cau.se into a Court of the United States. It would, as I have 
shown, transfer an indictment for any offence against a State law to a Court 
organized under a United States law, which has no power to enforce the laws of 
the State, or to punish in accordance therewith. If the defendant, upon such 
transfer, could be tried and convicted, it would place him in a position to which 
no power of pardon could extend ; and last, but not lea-st, the transfer to the 
United States Cii'cuit Court, in the case now under consideration, or in any 
case like it, would ijrevent hereafter the consideration by the Supreme Court of 



22 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

the United States of the extraordinary Act of Congress under which this motion 
to transfer has been made. 

Considerations such as these may have influenced Judge Marshall, when he, 
in the case of Cohens v. Virginia, used the language I have before quoted, and 
they may have also influenced Chief Justice McKean, w^hen he declared in Res- 
publica V. Cobbett (3 Dallas Reports, 476) " That neither the Constitution, nor 
the Act of Congress, ever contemplated that any Court under the United States 
shoiild take cognizance of anything savoring of criminality against the State. " 

Believing, therefore, as I do, that the State of New York has the right, under 
the Constitution of the United States, to try in its Courts all offenders against 
its penal laws, subject to the right of the United States Supreme Court to 
review their judgments, if in the process of the trial a question should arise, 
under any law of the United States, and believing, as I do, that Congress has no 
power to deprive the State of New York of that right, I concur in the decision 
of Judge Russell denying the defendant's motion to transfer the indictment. 

It was during this term that the case of Ketchum came before liiin. 
His last act as Recorder was the sentencing of this unfortunate man. 
Young Ketchum was arraigned on the 30th of December, 1865, for 
his sentence, having been previously convicted, A motion was made 
to stay proceedings, but this was denied ; whereupon Judge Hoifman 
delivered the following sentence : — 

" I have given your case, Edward C Ketchum, most anxious and careful con- 
sideration ; not because I ever doubted what the interests of society required or 
duty demanded of me, but for the reason that I well know that many gentlemen 
of high character and excellent judgment entertained views entirely at variance 
with my own. Occupying, as you did, an exalted position among the business 
men of this great commercial city ; commanding, as you did, unlimited confi- 
dence and credit ; possessed, as you were, of great wealth and influence, you 
became involved in speculations as vast as they were dangerous and ruinous ; 
and then, to save the financial ruin of yourself and house, which seemed immi- 
nent, you did what no one of inferior ijosition or credit could have done, raised' 
immense sums of money upon paper which you forged, the genuineness of which 
no one doubted, simply because you presented it. It was the every-day story, 
varying only from other stories in the magnitude of the forgeries and the great- 
ness of your fall, and you gave a shock to credit and to confidence from which 
the business interests of the city did not readily recover. Your friends and those 
who ask for you the mercy of the Court say you were laboring under a mania. 
But every man whose personal sympathies do not to some extent warp his judg- 
ment, knows that it was no other mania than that which seizes on every man 
who commits a crime in order to avert a personal calamity which he cannot 
endure to meet. If, sitting here as a judge, I should mitigate your punishment 
for any of the reasons assigned, or because hearts are aching and fainting, or 
because of my own personal sympathies with those who mourn for you, I should 
feel that every sentence I had passed upon a first offender had been a wrong, and 
that I was indeed a ' respecter of persons. ' It is my duty so to administer the 
law that all men may feel and know that none are beyond either its protection 
or its power. It may well be, as claimed by your friends, that if you were per- 
mitted to go free, you would soon be able to redeem your reputation and re-es- 
tablish your position. But if this court should yield to their application^ it would 



HIS NOMINATIOX AND FIRST ELECTION AS MAYOR. 23 

be an official declaration that men of influence and station could offend against the 
laws without the fear of punishment. Public interests and necessities demand that 
the penalties of violated law should be visited upon the offender by way of exam- 
ple as well as of punishment. If you had been put upon trial upon all the 
indictments brought against you, the term of your imprisonment would have 
extended through the greater part of your life. The District Attorney has vin- 
dicated the law by arraigning you upon one to which you have pleaded guilty, 
with full knowledge of the consequences. Upon that i)lea the extreme punish- 
ment is five years' imprisonment. The law, however, directs that the term of 
imprisonment shall not expire during the winter months. In discharge, there- 
fore, of my duty, I must pronounce the sentence of the Court, which is that you 
be imprisoned in the State Prison for the period of four years and six months." 

It will be remembered that this was addressed to a person whose 
friends believed that from their wealth and position in society they 
could prevent that punishment which would be dealt out to (Me less 
fortunate in worldly goods. The most persistent and extraordinary 
eff(n-ts were made, and the strongest influence brought to bear, both 
to defer and to mitigate the sentence. But all this had no effect upon 
Judge Hoffman. He saw before him the path of duty, of justice, 
and riglit, and could not be swerved from it. 



CHAPTER IV, 

IIIS NOMINATION' AND FIRST ELECTION AS MAYOR. 

The contest for Mayor in ISTew York in the full of 1865 was one of 
the most exciting that has ever taken place in this city. It was a 
contest in which the leading Republicans throughout the country took 
more interest than any whicli had taken place for years. Before 
the close of the State campaign that year, the Citizens' Association 
had placed John Hecker in the fiehl as its candidate. Immediately 
after the November election, the Tribune came out in support of Mr. 
Hecker, and urged his endorsement by the Republicans. C. Godfrey 
Gunther, whose term was about expiring, announced himself as a can- 
didate, and was nominated for re-election by the faction known as 
the McKeon Democracy. 

The Republicans, failing to be convinced by the arguments of the 
Tribune that it was iheir duty to nominate Mr. Hecker, met in con- 
vention, and, after considerable parleying, placed in nomination 



24 , JOHN T. HOFFMAN, 

Marshall O. Roberts, and entered ui)oii the cnnvass prepared to spend 
a small fortune to elect Lim, 

While these steps were being' taken by those ilictions, an effort was 
made to unite Tammany and Mozart Halls upon one candidate. 
The conventions of both of those organizations assembled and 
appointed a committee of conference, and then adjouined one day to 
await their report. On the 21st of November these eomniiltees 
made their respective reports. It was found that it was im}X)«sible 
for Tammany to unite with Mozart Hall exce])t upon an agreement 
to take Fernando Wood as the candidate, Tanim.iBy, havi»g Just 
gone through a contest at the State Convention with Wood in regard 
to regularity and won in the contest, was unwilling to surrender all 
gained there and now support Wood for Mayor. 

Th e Fam many Committee, through Hon. John Kelly, reported 
that they were unable to agree, whereupon F. I. A. Boole statecT^ 
that it having been determined to make no alliance w^ith Moxart, and 
that, from what he had seen and heard, he was satisfied that Hon> 
John T. Hoffman was the choice of the delegates comprising the con- 
vention, he would therefore move that he be nominated by acclama- 
tion. Several speeches were made, and a letter read from Elijah F. 
Purdy withdrawing his name, when a ballot was taken, and Mr. 
Hoffman received the unanimous vote of the conventioE. 

Among the speeches made on this occasion was one by Hon. Johra 
Van Buren, who declared "the nomination of Mr. Hoffman was in 
every respect a wise one. That gentleman united in himself most 
extraordinary qualities, and he would be a worthy successor of the 
great men who have held the office of Mayor of the city of New 
York. Under his administration the million of souls in the metrop- 
olis would be protected in their legal rights." 

The Mozart Convention assembled on the same day, nominated 
Fernando Wood, but that gentleman declined, whereupon the Con- 
vention endorsed John Hecker. The ball was then opened, and a 
bitter contest commenced. The Tammany ticket was Hoffman for 
Mayor and O'Gorman for Corporation Counsel. The Citizens' Asso- 
ciation, Mozart Hall, and the Tribune labored for the election of John 
Hecker and Richard O'Gorman. The Republicans united u[)on Mar- 
shall O. Roberts, and were supported by the Tintes and the Herald. 
The lyrics of the campaign were far more numerous than in any pre- 
vious canvass of the kind in the city. Not one of the principal jjapers 
in the city said a word against the character, the ability, and the fitness 
of Mr. Hoffman. It Avas, in fact, charged by some of the journals that 
he had been nominated by Tammany to give that organization re- 
spectability, and to save its reputation, as well as to prevent its 
overthrow. It was in this canvass that the Herald first called Mr. 



HIS XOMIXATION AND FIRST ELECTION AS MAYOR. 25 

Hoffman " Enron von Hoffman," and in a series of papers written in 
imitation of those popular articles of Gen, Halpine's, under tlie so- 
briquet of " Miles O'Reilly," endeavored to rally the Irish vote for 
Roberts, and create a jealousy between that class of our adopted 
citizens and tlie Germans. 

The Republicans made a most desperate fight, spent money with- 
out stmt, and, in fact, expended more money in the canvass than was 
ever used by all the candidates combined in any previous mayoralty 
election. The Citizens' Association also spent a small fortune trying 
to elect Hecker, The candidates were all men of high character and 
good standing in society. The race became therefore a spirited one. 
The ^Vorld, Journal of Commerce^ and the Staats Zeitung were the 
only daily papers that supported Hoffman. His high character — his 
honesty, his integrity and ability, however, compelled all the other 
papers to speak of him in eulogistic terms. The Herald was con- 
strained to say that " Recorder Hoffman, a lawyer of unquestionable 
ability, large experience in city affairs, and known hostility to the 
associations of official plunderers, is well fitted for the position." The 
Evening Post^ a Republican newspaper, expressed a decided prefer- 
ence for Mr, Hoffman. It said: "Hoffman seems to us to be pre- 
ferred ; in talent, character, energy, he is like the old class of Mayors 
that we used to choose in the Willets, the Livingstons, the Coldens, 
the Clintons, and the Lees," The Tribune said : " Recorder Hoff- 
man has a good reputation, Avhich we would not tarnish." The Xew 
York Times declared Mr, Hoffman to be "a man of ability, energy, 
and integrity. He is known by all who know him at all, to be inca- 
pable of aiding or countenancing dishonesty in any official action, 
nor is he in the least likely to become the tool of cliques or indivi- 
duals seeking personal profit at the expense of public good. As 
Recorder he has always been firm, upright, and courteous in the 
administration of justice, and in the riot trials of 1863 he evinced a 
fearlessness of popular clamor, and a high-toned dev^otion to justice 
and the public welfai'e, which entitle him to grateful remembrance 
from all who appreciate the perils which the city then barely escaped. 
His record during the war has been patriotic and loyal," 

With such flattering assurances of popular regard as these, Mr. 
Hoffman went into the memorable mayoralty contest of 1865, The 
struggle was brief, but exciting and spirited. Mayor Hoffman's per- 
sonal popularity, his patriotic record, and, above all, his great prol)ity 
of character, decided the contest in his favor. The result of the elec- 
tion was as follows : — 

Total votes 81,T02 

Hoffman 32,820 

Roberts 31,657 



26 JOHX T. HOFFMAISr. 

Hecker 10,390 

Gunther 6,758 

Mayor Hoffman's first message to the Common Council, January 1, 
1866, was characterized by its conscientious tone, its lucid exposition 
of the financial affairs of the city, and the excellence of its suggestions. 
One of the most important points of this message is contained in its 
pointed and excellent suggestion regarding a recodification of the 
charter, restoring to the city control of its own affairs, and clothing 
the Mayor with power commensurate with his responsibilities. We 
copy this clause : — 

THE CITY AND ITS GOVERNMENT. 

The growth and prosperity of this city are beyond parallel. Its resources are 
immense. • Population and wealth are pouring into it from all parts of the world. 
The rich country which surrounds it contributes incessantly to its i^rogress and 
advancement, and before many years the whole island on which it is situated 
will be crowded with an active and energetic people. 

Such a city deserves and should have one of the best charters, and one of the 
strongest municipal governments which can be given by the legislative power of 
the State. What that charter should be, and what action the Legislature should 
take in reference to our local aifairs, this is not the time to discuss ; but in view 
of the present public agitation of that subject, I feel bound to state two propo- 
sitions, which it is clear to me should never be lost sight of, and should be 
rigorously adhered to. 

1. The city should be permitted to choose its own officers, carry on its own 
government, and manage its own affairs. Its chai-tered rights should be preserved, 
its privileges maintained, and never under any circumstances should the State 
Legislature attempt to saddle upon it a commission to govern and control it. 

2. Its Mayor should be clothed with power commensurate with his responsi- 
bilities. A concentration of power and of responsibility should be the end and 
aim of aU legislation relating to its government. It is the division of power and 
the division of responsibility which causes all or nearly all of our municipal evils, 
and the sooner this great truth is universally recognized and acted uponj the 
better for the common interests of us all. 

One of the first of Mayor Hoffman's conspicuous acts after his elec- 
tion, was his veto message to the Common Council objecting to the 
resolution directing the Clerk of that body to take measures for the 
publication of 10,000 copies of the Corporation Manual. 

The work, the Mayor thought, was useful, and the sum which it 
was proposed to pay Mr. Valentine for its compilation, $3,500, not 
excessive. But this little volume cost the year before over $57,000, 
or $5.70 each, while the Mayor believed, from careful inquiry, that it 
could be printed for $3.00 a copy. A large number of copies were 
given to city officials for distribution, and he saw no good reason why 
the privilege of such distribution should be bestowed upon the Mayor, 
the Common Council, and the Clerk, at a cost to the city of over 



niS XOMINATIOX AND FIRST ELECTION AS MAYOR. 27 

850,000. Mayor Iloft'imin's acti(ni, liowever, was overridden by the 
Coiuinon Council, and the volume was printed as it liad been in pre- 
vious years. 

Subseqently, in April, he vetoed two schemes aimed at the city 
treasury — one for an extra allowance to a contractor, and tlie other, 
resolutions authorizinij^ a retired city inspectoi- to continue to occupy 
rooms rented by the city, and keep an indofinite number of clerivs for 
an indefinite time, to accomplish the untinished business of his depart- 
ment. 

These, together with simihu- acts, proved conclusively Mayor Hoff- 
man's steady devotion to the people's interests, his unswerving integ- 
rity, his commendable strength of character and firmness of will. 
Although his powers were painfully circumscribed, and his official 
position hampered, by the most provoking features of legislation, yet 
the Mayor managed, by dint of great perseverance, caiition, energy, 
and the exercise of judicious foresight, to dignify his ofiice, and make 
it at once an honor and an ornament to the city. 

On the 13th of May, 1866, Mr. Hoffman delivered the address on 
the occasion of the inauguration of the monument erected in Green- 
wood by the Seventy-first Regiment, to the memory of Colonel 
Abraham S. Vosburgh. The oration abounded with scholarly al- 
lusions and effective eloquence. Its character may be judged by its 
peroration, which was as follows : 

" We go hence in a few moments to the city of the living — the great scene of 
bustling, active life. Let us carry with us lasting recollections of this day, and 
resolve with renewed strength faithfully to discharge, tn our respective spheres, 
our many duties as citizens of a country for the presentation of which oiu* friend 
gave up his life. I would not intrude upon these serious reflections and solemn 
scenes, one political thought or one jan-ing sentiment ; but, standing beside the 
tomb, all of us, citizens and soldiers alike, may well express the earnest hope 
and prayer that the death of Vosburgh, and of the thousands of patriots and 
heroes who followed him, may not have been in vain ; that the Union and Con- 
stitution for which they died may be preserved and protected against all as- 
saults ; that the States for the eternal union of which they perilled everything 
may not be kept asunder ; that fanaticism and madness everywhere may give 
way to a great and growing patriotism, which alone can make a people 
pro-sperous and happy ; that sectional prejudice, the rankest weed that ever 
grew in the garden of liberty, the intensest poison that ever polluted the well- 
spring of national prosperity, may be rooted out, and destroyed forever ; that 
the glories of peace and union shall indeed follow upon the hoiTors of civil war ; 
and that the whole people throughout the length and breadth of the land may be 
thorovighly inspired with the feeling that they have, and ever will have, ' one 
country, one Constitution, and one destiny.' " 

When the obnoxious e.Kcise law went into effect, in the spring of 
1866, a feeling of strong and bitter indignation prevailed throuj^hout 
the city, in opposition to the despotic measure. On the 4th of June, 



28 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

the German citizens held a mass meetin2^ in Union Squaie. Fully 
twenty thousand persons were present, and the occasion was marked 
by tlie adojitiun of most emphatic resolutions and the delivery of 
pronounced speeches. Mayor IToffiman wrote a letter to the meet- 
ing, which, like all his other public efforts, was characterized by 
dignity, force of statement, and breadth of view. The letter is as 
follows : — 

Mayor's Office, New York, June 2d, 1864. 

GeXTLEMEn : — I am in receipt oi: your invitation, to address a mass meeting 
of the German societies of New York, to be held in Union Square on Monday 
next. 

I fully recognize your right to call upon me as a public man to express my 
sentiments ujion a law which affects so many of my fellow-citizens, and I shall 
freely and fully declare them. 

We all recognize the evils of intemperance, and the consequences to which the 
tmrestrained sale of intoxicating liquors leads, and each of us should be willing 
to do his share to remedy these evils. You and I, and all citizens who have an 
interest in good government and the welfare of our fellow-men, look with ap- 
proval upon any judicious and wholesome restraint in this direction. Any law 
which, while securing equal justice to all, shall, by proper regulations, deny li- 
censes to disreputable persons, suppress disorderly houses and assemblages, and 
preserve order and decency throughout the community, demands and should 
receive an earnest support. 

But I am as much opposed to intolerance as I am to intemperance, and a law 
which under the i^retext of moral reform strikes at the life-long habits and customs 
of a large class of our people, which are as harmless as they are universal, will never 
be sustained by any considerable portion of our community. There is a spirit of 
intolerance in some of the provisions of the present law, against which you are 
right in remonstrating, and yoi\r remonstrances must be heard. A law which 
can be so constraed as to enable officials to invade a man's house and ho7ne, and 
those clubs and associations which are legally as private as the home circle, 
which declares how long at night the lights may bum there, and at what hour 
those engaged in social intercourse there must cease their enjoyment and sepa- 
rate, and which follows with policemen and spies, and with restraint, large 
masses of the working population with their families, whenever and wherever 
they assemble, in accordance with life-long habits and customs, on their only day 
for rest and harmless recreation, creating no disorder and violating no man's 
rights, cannot receive my support as a wise and just exercise of legislation. 
Despotism is none the less oppressive because it comes in the form of law. 

Parties and party principles are changing. There was a time, not remote, when 
the word " conservatism," as applied to the just rights and acknowledged liber- 
ties of the people, was the popular watchword of political parties. Now we 
have a powerful party boasting the name of " Radical," who.se members take 
counsel in jiassion and legislate in our National and State halls with an aggressive 
vindictiveness which seems to recognize no limit, as if they were charged with a 
special mission to make all men's views conform to theirs. 

I cannot better express my sentiments in regard to this class of reformers than 
by quoting the words of a distinguished statesman and orator, now gone, who at 
an early period foresaw the spirit of aggressive intolerance which was gaining 
ground among our public men. 



HIS NOMINATION AND FIRST ELECTION AS MAYOR. 20 

He says : " There are men who, -with clear pefceptions, as they think, of their 
own duty, do not see how too eager a pursuit of one duty may involve them in 
violation of others, or how too warm an enhancement of one truth may lead to a 
disreg'ard of others equally important ; a8 1 heard it strong'ly s^tated not many 
days ai^o, these persons are dis]wsed to moitnt on a particular duty as upon a 
war-horse, and to ride furiously on and upon and over all other duties that may 
etand in the way. * * * if their perspicucnis \'ision enables them to detect a, 
spot on the face of the sun, they think that a g'ood reason why the sun should he 
struck down from heaven. They prefer the chance of running- into utter dark- 
ness to living in heavenly light, if that heavenly light be not absolutely ^vithoufc 
any imperfection. They are impatient men, too impatient always to give heed 
to the admonition of St. Paul, that we are not to do evil that good may come." 

The limits of a letter will not permit the discussion of the law, and the princi- 
ples it involves ra its many aspects. But I have no hesitation in saying that as 
I understand the objects of your meeting, and to which I have alluded, they 
have my cordial sj-mpathy and approval. But while the law in question remains 
on the statute-book, it is your duty, as good citizens, to obey it. You have 
already set an example of obedience to law which has secured to you the respect 
and symi^athy of the public. Laws can only be avoided and set aside by the 
action of courts, or by the representatives of the people in Legislature ass-ombled. 
One way to instruct those representatives is through the medium of powerful 
assemblages, in the mode adopted by you. "Persistent vigilance in this legitimate 
direction will, I am confident, secure to you redress of the grievances of which 
you complain. 

I am exceedingly obliged to you for the courtesy you have extended to me. 
But I think it desirable that your meeting shovdd be addressed exclusively by 
your own speakers. I have stated to a member of your ccanmitteo the rea- 
sons Avhy I think so, and I need not repeat them here. 

I am, gentlemen, very truly yours, 

JonN T. Hoffman. 

On tlie 4th of July, 1866, the Tammany Society celebrated tlie 
recurrence of the National Anniversary with their customary fervor 
and patriotism. Mr. Hoffman, the Grand Sachem of the Order, de- 
livered the following eloquent address : 

Brothers and Friends : I welcome you heartily to this old wig\ram. within 
which, for more than half a century, the Tammany Society has with luifailing 
regularity celebrated the annivei-sary of American independence. Its venerable 
walls bear the marks of time, and are blackened with the smoke of many a 
council-fire and many a conflict. In outward show it compares but poorly with 
the gilded temples of some more modern political associations ; but in its ancient 
and honorable record — its glorious past and its bright future — it outshines them 
all. (Applause.) During the years of fearful straggle through which the nation 
has just passed, while other places, more elegant and more fashionable, were the 
resort of those who assumed to themselves much of the patriotism and loyalty of 
the land, Old Tammany was thrown wide open as a recruiting-place for a class 
of patriots who were ^villing to fight, as well as to talk, for their country. (Loud 
applause.) Brave men went forth from here who either died upon the battle- 
field or have returned, after an honorable discharge, to labor and to vote for the 
speedy restoration of that Union for the maintenance of which they hazarded 
their lives, Tammany Hall, true to its ancient record, never yielded to the 



30 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

demands of fanaticism or faltered in devotion to the Constitution (applause) ; 
and now that peace has come, it demands that with peace shall come " good-will 
to men." It sustained the war, as waged for the preservation of the Union and 
the Constitution, and having triumi^hed, it demands that neither the one nor the 
other shall be tampered with by politicians or fanatics, in Congress or out of it. 
(Applause.) On this anniversary of the Independence of the United States of 
America, it asserts, not as a theory but as a fact, that the States are united — 
that they are equal under the Constitution, and that the avowed determination 
of a Radical Congress to refuse representation to eleven of them, is a gross 
assumption and abuse of political power, which deserves to be and will be 
rebuked by an intelligent people. It demands, and will insist before the coun- 
try, that the people of those eleven States, having abandoned the heresy of 
secession, and submitted to the authority of the Government, should have imme- 
diate representation in the persons of men who are true to the Constitution and 
the laws (applause), and that Radical partisans shall not, for the sake of per- 
petuating their political power, keep asunder those States, for the eternal union 
of v.'hich hundreds of thousands of brave men have perished, and thousands of 
millions of treasure have been expended. ("'Never." Cheers.) In making 
these demands it is ready to start anew, in concert with conservative men every- 
where, in a determined effort to overthrow those who, now that war is ended, 
will have no peace, and who, now that disunion is killed, wiU have no Union. 
(Cheers. ) William D. Kennedy wen* forth the leader of a Tammany regiment, 
and died its representative. Before he went he joined with us in placing in front 
of the Old Wigwam Jackson's motto: "The Union, it must be preserved." 
Elijah F. Purdy, my immediate predecessor, in his proi^er sphere did noble ser- 
vice in the good cause, and died on the last anniversary of that great battle 
which gave to Jackson immortality. (Applause.) One by one the old braves 
have passed away, but the younger warriors retain their spirit and will vindicate 
their memories. They choose this day to start anew upon the war-path, and 
will not bury the tomahawk until all enemies of the Union of the States, and of 
the rights of the States, shall be overthrown. (Cheers.) The iiroprieties of the 
occasion, and the manifold exercises of the day, forbid a reference to great 
questions of national and State and local policy, which wiU at the proper time be 
discussed. 

I again welcome you to the Old Wigwam. It may be the last time we shall 
assemble here. It is full of bright memories of the past and great hopes of the 
future ; but it must soon give place to a new and more commodious one, which, 
in the greatness of its proportions and the harmony of all its parts, will be em- 
blematical of the Union of which it is the representative. (Cheers.) Let a voice 
go forth from here to-day which will be heard throughout the land. (Cheers.) 



CHAPTER V. 

NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND THE CANVASS OF 1866. 

As early as July, 1866, JMayor Hofftnan's name began to be men- 
tioned in the Democratic press of the State for the office of Governor. 



NOMIN'ATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF ISGG. 31 

His abilities as an executive officer, and the distinguisliing probity of 
])is official character, had attracted the attention of the Democracy of 
the State. He had, however, up to this time taken little or no part 
in State politics. While his fame as Recorder and Mayor of the 
City of New York liad been sounded throughout the interior, 
yet he had but little personal acquaintance with the Democratic 
politicians of the State, and none witli the masses of the party outside 
of New York and Brooklyn. The comments and eulogies of the city 
press were, however, echoed in the rural papers of the State. His 
speeches at the reception of President Johnson on his journey north- 
ward during that summer had been extensively published and read 
by the people. These had served to introduce his name and liis abili- 
ties to circles where they had not been known before. Long before the 
Convention assembled, his name loomed up as one of the most promi- 
nent candidates for the position of Governor. 

His strength began to be so universally conceded that the oppo- 
sition press, under the lead of the Herald and Tribune, assailed him 
and endeavored to turn the tile in another direction. 

The Convention assembled at Albany on the 11th day of Septem- 
ber. It was a convention which was called under the joint auspices 
of the Democratic and Conservative Ilepublican Committees ; the 
latter having been appointed at a convention which previously 
assembled in Saratoga, to elect delegates to the Johnson National 
Convention. One-third of the Albany Convention was then Conser- 
vative Republicans. The Democracy of the State had just lost their 
great organizer, Dean Richmond, and during the election of dele- 
gates there was great anxiety as to who should be selected to fill his 
place. The convention was therefore an important gathering to the 
State, and on that account was looked upon with more than usual 
interest. The leading men of the Democracy were there, both 
those who had figured in its politics for years, as Avell as the young 
men of prominence who were just entering upon the stage of action. 
Many of the old wheel-horses of the Republican party were also in 
attendance, manifesting great anxiety as to the result. 

As tlie delegates assembled it was found that there were numerous 
candidates for the nomination. Among these were Sanford E. 
Church, Henry C. Murphy, John T. Hoffman, John A. Dix, Henry 
W. Slocum, Wm. F. Allen, and William Kelly. But one object 
appeared to animate the entire assemblage, which was one of the 
largest that was ever drawn together by a State Convention, and 
that was to bring out the strongest man. The Conservative Republi- 
cans, in many instances, pressed the name of General Dix, but soon 
wheeled into line for Hoffman ; and after two days' canvassing the 
merits of the several candidates, their strength and their capabilities, 



32 JOHN T. iioff:^!.^^. 

it was generally conceded tliat Hoffman's nomination was the best 
that could be made. On the second day of the proceedings, lion. A. 
Oakey Hall presented Mr. Hoffman's name to the Convention in a neat 
and appropriate speech. This was followed by Edwards Pierrepont, 
who, in seconding the nomination, announced that he had been re- 
quested by General Dix to withdraw his name, and to announce that 
he (Dix) was in favor of John T. Hoffman. 

Other speeches were made, eulogistic of Mr. Hoffman, by Fi-ancis 
Kernan, of Utica ; Darius A. Ogden, of Yates ; and Abraham 
Wakeman, of New York, when Mr. Hofftnan was nominated by 
acclamation amidst unbounded enthusiasm. 

After making the other nominations the Convention adjourned 
until afternoon, at which time Mr. Hoffman, liaving been telegraphed 
for, appeared and made the following address, accepting the nomina- 
tioa : — 

Gentlemen of the Convention and Fellow-citizens : I should be less 
than a man if I did not admit that I am proud at this greeting. I have just 
entered the city of Albany. I have come here in obedience to a telegram I did 
not feel at liberty to disregard. During the active session of the Convention, 
when my name was being canvassed with others for the office of G-ovemor of the 
State of New York, I did not feel at liberty to come here, because I felt that 
if the nomination were to be made it should be made by the delegates assembled 
there without any personal interference or action of my own. (Cheers.) Now 
that the nomination has been made, I am here to accejit it in iierson, and thank 
you for the honor you have done me. (Cheers.) I appreciate, gentlemen, the 
honor you have conferred on me, and I also appreciate the responsibilities, the 
cares, the anxieties that will follow upon it ; for no man, I care not how young 
or how old, how vigorous or how feeble, can enter on the combat, such as we 
have to iight, without feeling, in the very depths of his heart, the importance of 
his position and of the canvass in which we are to be engaged. I feel this the 
more because I know there have been in this Convention many to whom I was per- 
sonally a stranger, my lot in public life having been thrown in the .great city of 
New York, and my public career having been to a great extent confined there. 
I feel I am under a debt of double obligation to the gentlemen from different 
parts of the State comprising the Convention who have chosen me as the stand- 
ard-bearer of the great constitutional party. (Cheers.) I have nothing to commend 
myself to them but my record, such as it was. (Cheers.) During the great war 
through which this country has passed it was my privilege to be in position in 
New York, where I endeavored to oppose secession and defend the Union, and to 
aid in the promotion of volunteering, and I labored, at the same time, that the 
right of every citizen under the Constitution and the laws should be protected 
and held inviolate. (Cheers. ) In the court of which I had the honor to be a 
member, whUe I undertook judicially to imi^ress on all people obedience to all law, 
and to see that every man, so far as I had power, be protected in his constitu- 
tional and legal rights, I did not hesitate to visit the penalties of the law on 
those who violated the law. (Cheers.) I have endeavored, in the i^osition in 
which I have been placed, to stand ia opposition to centralization of power in the 
State and elsewhere. I was opposed to the "farming out" of the city of New 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERXOR, AND CANVASS OF 18GG. 33 

York to partisan legislatures, and I stand opposed to it to-day. (Immense cheer- 
ing.) When the war was at an end, with my fellow-citizens I declared that the 
war having ended, peace should come. At the New England dinner, December, 
1865, when a distinguished United States Senator said that according to the old 
Puritan doctrine it would be necessary to shed more blood for the remission of 
sins, I took my stand and said : ' ' Blood enough has been shed to remit the sins 
of the universe." I declared then, and on the 8th of January following, that we 
were on the eve of great and important events, and that for the time all political 
antagonism should be buried. There I took my stand, and avowed my readiness 
to unite with all men, whoever might be the leaders, under the battle crj' of 
"The Union and the Constitution ; " to sustain the President (cheers) in his de- 
termination to restore every State to its proper position in the Union. (Cheers.) 
My fellow-citizens, pardon what, perhaps, may seem to be the egotism of these 
remarks ; but it is due to those I have never had the pleasure to meet before, to 
tell them what has been my platform, and is at present. I feel as I stand here, 
in the presence of this Convention, and selected as I have been by the great con- 
stitutional Union party, that I have been honored among men who have been 
honored everywhere. I have been mentioned in connection with Dix, Murphy, and 
Slocum, and other dLstinguished names ; I have been chosen by the unani- 
mous voice the standard-bearer of this great Conservative Union party of the 
State ; and when I feel that the selection has been made from among names honored 
everywhere, wherever mentioned ; that I have been in this Convention named 
in association with Dix, Murphy, Slocum, Kernan, and that among them all you 
have done me the distinguished honor of saying, that in view of the present con- 
dition of affairs, in view of the emergencies of the day, I am the man to run 
this fall for the office of Governor of the State of New York, I feel it due to 
you and due to myself to state every doctrine I have advocated. I cannot 
make any long si^eech. I stand here a constitutional Union man, pledged to 
carry out what the Senate of the United States promised in its resolutions, 
referred to in your second resolution, and what General Grant promised 
when General Lee surrendered to him. (Cheers. ) What is the issue 'i It is, 
whether the war for the Union shall be followed by a Union ; it is whether, se- 
cession having been put down, in theory and practice — whether, slavery having 
been abolished — whether, the South having submitted to the authority of the 
Government, the Southern States shall be represented in the Congress of the 
United States by loyal men. That is the question of the day. The Radicals 
themselves differ in some of their propositions. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, on one 
hand, declares for universal confiscation, and universal suffrage, and universal 
ruin. Mr. Horace Greeley, representing another element, on the other part, de- 
clares for universal suffrage and universal amnesty. Others are for this plan, 
others for that. But the great practical question is what I have just stated : 
whether the States now kept out of the Union shall be represented in the Con- 
gress of the United States by loyal men. (Great cheering. ) That question will 
be determined this fall. A distinguished Radical politician, travelling in the 
cars to-day, admitted that in his judgment the contest would be a close one. 
(Cheers. ) Perhaps it wUl, gentlemen— that depends upon you. It depends upon 
you whether, when you leave this hall and return to your homes, you organize 
the State for the pmijose of victory. If that be done, this great question, on 
which we have started, will be decided with triumph. Gentlemen, the Radical 
power and party in this countiy are a power and party for destruction — it can 
tear down, but it can never buUd up. (Cheers. ) There is a spirit of intolerance 



34 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

about it that can crush, bu.t can never restore. It assails every individual right, 
it attacks every local organization which is antagonistic to its own interests, and 
seeks to centralize within itself that power which would enable it to perpetuate 
its baleful influence on you forever. They talk of victory. Where is the acces- 
sion to their strength ? From whence does it come ? I can form no idea, unless 
they hope, by a shameless open bid they have made for the votes of Irishmen, 
that they can catch them by the spiirious pretexts they set forth. I am told 
that they anticipate entrapping a few men who have heretofore voted with the 
Democratic party, and that they will now be with them. Why, I tell them that 
the men there and elsewhere wUl perceive too readHy that the policy they are 
advocating towards the Southern States is the same policy which England has 
enforced against Ireland (cheers), and they will be ready to strike a balance be- 
tween profession on the one side and practice on the other. They will be ready 
to see that the same spirit of intolerance which keeps the States out of the 
Union, which declares who are fit and who are not fit to be trusted with politi- 
cal priveleges — that same spirit of intolerance which interferes with social rela- 
tions here and elsewhere, will, when the present hobbies are worn out, assail not 
only the suffrages, but the religion of the men whose support they are now court- 
ing. (Cheers.) Now, my fellow-citizens, I have about done. These are desul- 
tory remarks. No man who appreciates the magnitude of the great State of 
New York — its interests, its wealth, its power, present and prospective, and who 
knows that by a convention of the great conservative men within it he has been 
chosen for the time being as their leader, can help feeling the importance and 
solemnity of the occasion. These remarks are not made, therefore, in a spirit of 
excitement. We go forward from this day in the battle throughout the State ; 
we fight the men who advocate centralization of power, the men who call them- 
selves " loyal." Against the great body of the supporters of these Radical lead- 
ers we have not a word to say ; but when these Radicals assume all the loyalty 
of the land, I ask them, " What do they mean ? Loyalty to what ? Loyalty to 
the Constitution ? " No. They deny its application to the whole Union, and 
tamper with it. while States are unrepresented. Loyal to the President ? 
No, th'ey vilify him. Their test of loyalty consists in submission to the action 
of a majority in Congress. (Cheers.) Has the test of loyalty come to this? 
Has it come to this in free and independent America ? No man can be loyal who 
does not give his willing assent to the action of a majority in Congress. You and 
I have been taught in the days of old that it was love of country, love of i\nion, 
obedience to the Union that constituted loyalty ; that it was that that deter- 
mined whether a man was loyal or not. But, thank God ! none of us have been 
brought up in a school in which we were taught to say that a determination to 
keep ten States out of a representation in Congress was the test of loyalty in 
Americans. (Cheers.) Am I right? ("Yes.") Then, fellow-citizens, enter on 
the contest which we have commenced with zeal and determination. Recollect 
the issue ! It is the rights of the people ; it is the rights of the States as weU 
as the United States ; it is the preservation of the Union of States. You have 
in this contest shown your appreciation of the Union of States, the rights of 
States, and of the interests of the States, in opposition to those who are work- 
ing for the disunion of the States and the disruption of our national imity. In 
their State Convention at Syracuse last week they forgot the State of New Y^ork, 
and in their resolutions and platform they have made no reference to it. Is 
that because the policy of the Radicals either in its legislative or executive de- 
partments is so defined and is so popular that no further declaration of princi- 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 1866. 35 

pies is needed ? If so, I liave yet to learn it. They have ignored the great is- 
sues which are vital to the State of New York, and have adopted a national i)ol- 
icy which keeps States disunited and delays indefinitely the restoration of the 
Union. Against such a policy the conservative men of the great State of Now 
York will contend, with an assurance of triumph. Long Lsland and Manhattan 
will thunder forth majorities in favor of the principles declared at this Conven- 
tion, and if you meet them with your usual vote, your success is certain. In 
the canvass in which you are engaged, I will, so far as health permits, discuss 
those public questions in a more satisfactory manner than now. (Great cheers. ) 
I know the contest will be an angry and bitter one. In its bitterness I will take 
no part. If this canvass cannot be conducted by me as a jjatriot and citizen 
ought to conduct it, I would rather not conduct it at all. (Cheers.) I stand by 
the record of my life. There is no public or private act of mine that fears in- 
vestigation. (Cheers. ) If there is to be vituperation and abu.se in this contest 
— and they threaten to resort to it — I shall not follow them. Our policy is 
not to be on the defensive, but on the offensive. (Cheers.) There is now a 
disposition to yield past differences, and men of different shades of political 
opinion are uniting for the common good. (Cheers.) As the President said to 
me the other day in the streets of New York, when he was surrounded by 
thousands, " The country can yet be saved. " (Cheers.) Starting on that the- 
ory, to save the State and save the country, to make the entering wedge by 
which the hosts of Radicalism can be routed, is to be the thing we are to ac- 
complish. We are to take them in their citadel. The war is to be offensive on 
our part. They must defend themselves. We are now right upon the record. 

The campaign at once commenced in earnest. The Republican 
papers weie not slow to commence their abuse of Mr. Hoffman, but 
their slanders were easily and eiFectually silenced by the letter of lead- 
ing New York Republicans, nominating Mr. Hoffman for Recorder a 
second term, and paying a high tribute to his ability, judgment, and 
patriotism. This and other avowed evidences of the esteem in which 
Mr. Hoffman was held by leading Republicans while acting as 
Recorder, had the effect to check ranch of the parti-san abuse that 
would otherwise have characterized the campaign of that year. 

Mr. Hoffman opened the campaign personally in Elmira, on the 
night of September 25. The meeting was one of the largest that ever 
convened in the western part of this State. His address there being 
the key-note of the campaign, we present it entire. Its pertinency 
and strength have a decided bearing upon the present canvass : — 

SPEECH OF JOHN T. HOFFMAX. 

L.VDIES AND Gentlemen : — I came into your beautiful town this morning, the 
candidate of the young men for the Governor of your State, a stranger personally 
almost to every man within the limits of your city. But I have had a greeting 
and welcome accorded so sincere, so enthu.siastic, that I feel truly grateful to 
you all. (Cheers.) I stand before you to-night the representative of great prin- 
ciples, and of a great conservative party, made up of men who for some time 
past have not acted in political association. For the time has come — the neces- 
sities of the age demanded that it should come — that for the great end of secur- 

• 3 



36 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

ing a speedy restoration of all the States to tlieir rights as States under the Con- 
stitution, men should lay aside past prejudices, past antagonisms, and meet to- 
gether in one common body for one common end, the good of the whole United 
States of America. (Loud cheers.) I do not stand here to-night, ladies and 
gentlemen, to say one single word in regard to the candidate for Governor of the 
State of New York. I leave it to my enemies to abuse me ; I leave it to the 
record of my life to defend me. (Cheers.) I announced at the beginning of 
this campaign that I should indulge in no personalities ; and I declared then, as 
I declare now, that if the record of a life in the leading city of this great country 
will not justify me before the people of the State, nothing that I can say in my 
own behalf, and in my own defence, can secure to me their approval and 
their suffrage. I have no charges to make against my opponents ; I have noth- 
ing to say as to them personally. The assault I have to make to-night is upon 
their policy and their principles, and I shall do that to the best of my ability, 
sparing nothing in the attack. Now, my fellow-citizens, let us look for a moment 
at the great issue of the day. I can hardly hope to add anything to the forcible 
speech of the distinguished gentleman who presides at this meetmg. I do not 
hesitate to say that I have not heard in this campaign, nor have I read so much 
said in so few words which must commend itself to the g'ood judgment of every 
patriotic American citizen. (Cheers.) Nevertheless, in my own way of ijresent- 
ing this question, I shall proceed to do it with such brevity as is consistent with 
the occasion. This country has just passed through a terrible struggle, a war 
which has convulsed it from one extreme to the other. It never could have 
passed successfully through it if the hearts of the great mass of the American 
people, representing all parties, had not been in the contest. We will not look 
at the past. We will not dwell upon the assaiilts which have been made upon 
individual men and individual parties. The great truth stands out, prominent 
and beyond dispute, that the whole people of the North, almost en masse, have 
united their energies, their talents, and their capital, in the one great work of 
preserving the union of the States, for which their fathers fought and bled ; and 
however they may have differed as to the means and peculiar manner in which 
the war should be conducted, they were agreed upon the one great point, that it 
should be so conducted that all the States of all this Union should be ke])t within 
the Union, under the Constitution, and under the restrictions imposed thereby. 
For that end, how many hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacrificed, 
how many thousands of millions of dollars have been expended, how many houses 
have been desolated, how many young hopes have been blighted, how many old 
heads have been bowed down in sorrow and brought to the grave, for that one 
end, the preservation of the union of these States ! If, during this whole con- 
test, one man or woman had been asked this question : " When this war is over, 
shall the States in rebellion be kept out of the Union 'i " there would have been 
one unanimous and emphatic '' No." (Cheers.) That, then, was the object for 
which they fought. That, then, was the object for which sacrifices of life and 
sacTifices of money were made ; and now that the war is ended, now that the 
rebellion has been subdued, now that the admitted cause of the rebellion — sla- 
very — has been abolished, and now that the South have declared that their own 
debt shall be repudiated, now that they have fulfilled the obligations imposed 
upon them by Congress when the rebellion was suppressed, we still find the great 
majority of that Congress, representing the Radical party in this country, declar- 
ing with one voice that the States which our people fought to keep in the Union, 
shall not come in. And the question which you are to determine in this election in 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 1866. 37 

t"he Empire State is, whether the North is with the Radical party upon that 
issue. 

3Iy friends, I have said that the rebellion has been subdued. If it has not 
been subdued, then the war is not yet over. But it has been suljducd : the 
President of the United States has proclaimed peace throug-hout the land : every 
soldier in rebellion lias gone to his home. There is not an armed force arrayed 
against the <Jovemment from one end of this country to the other. There has 
not been an outbreak, with one or two exceptions, in the South since Lee's sur- 
render. There has been a riot in New Orleans, and that is all. With that sin- 
gle exception, history al?ords no parallel to the entire submission exhibited by 
the Southern people to the results of the war brought on by themselves and 
ended by the heroic valor of the people of the North. I ask the chainnan of 
this meeting, I ask you, when the war was being waged, was it not your fear, as 
it was mine, that even after the war was closed the discontented sjiirits of the 
South would form guerrilla bands, and keep the country in a condition of in- 
quietude for years to come ? Did not Mr. Lincoln himself declare that he feared, 
after the war was over, that Congress would have to take action to compel 
the Southern people to send representatives to Congress ? But what is the pic- 
ture ? Entire submission to the authority of the Government ; rea<liness to re- 
ceive propositions proposed by CongTass ; slavery cheerfully and willingly abol- 
ished — the sacrifice of what to them, or many of them, was all they had ; the 
debt, to which many of them were pledged by every dictate of honor, reiiudia- 
ted ; obedience to law ; the States, many of them, passing laws to protect the 
rights of every citizen, white and black ; giving every evidence they can of their 
submission to the result of the war, and asking nothmg in return but that they 
should have the rights that the Constitution guarantees to everj' State and to 
every citizen of every State. (Cheers. ) Have I told the truth ? I know not 
what may have been told to the people of Elmira by this travelling company of 
Radicals who are circulating through the State, nor do I care ; for men who 
come from any section of the country begging the re-st of the coimtry to keep 
them out of the Union, are not worthy of the confidence of the American na- 
tion. (Cheers. ) The man who claims to be a representative of a Southern 
State and of the Southern people, who does not want his State to have its re- 
presentation under the Constitution, might far better stay at home than go 
travelling about the country at the expense of loyal leagues and Eadical politi- 
cians and asses.sments upon office ■'holders, to denounce his own people, and beg 
that they may be kept out of the Union. (Cheers.) I shall not stop to ask 
what declarations these men have made to the citizens of Elmira ; I appeal to 
the history of the day, to the journals of the day, to the temper of the Southern 
people, to all the evidences that have been furnished to any community, if the 
picture I have presented of the entire submission of the Southern States to the 
authority of the Government is not a true picture in all its features. (Applause. ) 
Now, if it is, what then ? If there is anything of which an American citizen 
feels proud, it is of his honor. If there is anything of which an American citizen 
feels proud, it is when he can say throughout the world, " I am an American." 
If there is anything of which an American could desire to boast, it would be that 
the American nation never breaks treaties and never violates its plighted faith. 
Gentlemen, to what did Congress plight the faith of the nation in reference to 
this war ? That it was not waged in any spirit of oppression or with any pur- 
pose of subjugation, but merely to keep the States in the Union, and when the 
war was closed to give them their rights under the Constitution, and the protec- 



38 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

tion which the Constitution griaranteecl to them. Was not that published in 
every paper throughout the laud ? Was not it aunoiinced from this platform 
and from every platform throughout the country ? Was not it the leading' ciy 
under which men, without regard to party, rallied to our standard and to the 
public meetings to encourage the soldiers who had gone to the war? (Applause.) 
If the cry had been, " It is prosecuted to put dowoi rebels and keep out the 
Southern States," would there have been the same enthusiasm? ("No, no.") 
But no. Congress in solemn resolutions declared the object of the war, and Con- 
gress, out of honor, in consideration of this sacred pledge, is boiuid to-day to ad- 
mit loyal representatives of the people of the South. (Applause.) I have 
spoken of the pledged faith of the nation. Was there nothing else ? When Lee 
sun-endered to Grant, what did Grant tell him ? " Lay down your arms, go home, 
and as long as you are obedient to the Constitution and the laws you shall be 
protected in your rights as American citizens." And is there a soldier or officer 
who would stand before General Grant to-day and say : " The word you pledged 
to them shall be broken ? " ("No, no;" cheers.) When the President of the 
United States travels through this country with Grant on one side and Farragut 
on the other, they are two living- witnesses of the sense of the obligation which 
they feel to the plighted faith of the nation. (Cheers.) General Grant may de- 
clare he is no poUtician, Farragut may declare he is no politician ; but when these 
two noble heroes of the war stand side by side with the President, while the peo- 
ple of Indiana, it may be, refuse to hear him, you may be sure that they desire 
with him to secure the representation of all the States by loyal men in the Con- 
gress of the country. Let the soldiers who have returned from the battle-field, 
who are now at home, scattered through this country, determine for themselves, 
when this election comes, whether they stand with Grant and Farragut and the 
President, or whether they stand with Stevens and Greeley and Butler and 
Wendell Phillips, et id (rinne genus. 

Now, my friends, we have got a little to say about Congress. I shall endeavor 
not to exhaust you by any long speech, for you perceive that my throat is not in 
the best condition. A speech in the open air, to such an audience as I have had 
to-day, is not calculated to improve it. But I have my duty to perform in this cam- 
paign, and I mean to j^erform it, let the consequences be what they may. 
(Cheers.) I have said Congress denies to these States representation in Con- 
gress. Now, I propose to see what Congress once insisted on in reference to this 
same question. In 1864, just before the adjournment of Congress, a bill was 
passed for the reconstruction of the States. It was introduced into the Senate, 
and finally passed the House on the last day of the session. It did not receive 
the approval of the President, for the reason, as he said, that it passed so late 
that he had not time to give it the examination he desired. But it embraced 
what Congress was willing to do. The first amendment simply referred to who 
might vote in the State elections, for the State conventions that were to assem- 
ble. The second and third articles were as follows : 

2. Involuntary servitude is forever prohibited, and the freedom of aU jjersons 
is forever guaranteed in the State. 

3. No debt. State or confederate, created by or under the sanction of the 
usurping power, shall be recognized or paid in the State. 

The bill further provided that when a constitution containing these provisions 
should have been framed by the convention, and adopted by popular vote, it 
should be recognized as the government of the State. 

And then Congress declared, by every act which could make it more binding, 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 1SG6. 39 

that those amendments being adopted, the Constitution should be ratified in 
Congress. Mr. Lincoln, in the same message in which he gives his rea.sons for 
not signing the bill, which was that it was presented for his approval less than 
one hour before the xine die adjournment of Congress, goes on to make a pro- 
clamation, saying that the provisions therein were acccpt.ablc to him. Congress 
did not claim then that the Southern States should adopt amendments to the 
Constitution, which they now claim .should be adopted ; and that was at the 
close of the session of 1864. But Congress at the la t session pa-ssed an act 
making it necessary for certain other amendments to ')C adopted by the Southern 
people. They nowhere say that when those amend i. nts are adopted by the 
Southern people they shall have representation in Con ress. On the contrary, 
a bill wa.s introduced in Congress declaring that who a these amendments were 
adopted by the States, then they should have reprn«cntatiyes in Congress, n7id 
tliat bill iras drfeated in the House. I come, therefore, to the question of these 
constitutional amendments, loecause they are important amendments in this can- 
vass. The Chairman of this meeting has said, and said very properly, that the 
question is not now whether constitutional amendments shall be adopted or 
whether they shall not be adopted. We are not called upon in thi.s canvass to 
vote upon that question. He has stated very truly that the question is simply 
whether the Southern States shall have representation, independent of the ques- 
tion of the adoption of these constitutional amendments. I desire to say a single 
word upon the amendments themselves, on the theory that if they were adopted 
these States should have admission. Now, these amendments are numerous. 
There are four or five of them, and it is the first time, I think, in the history of 
the country, that any attempt has ever been made to require States to adopt a 
series of amendments to the Constitution at one time. One of these amend- 
ments, and a very serious amendment, which is talked about to the peoi^le a 
gTeat deal by the Radical orators and speech-makers going about, is the one that 
declares that hereafter representation shall only be allowed to the voting popu- 
lation of the States ; or, in other words, that wherever male persons above the 
age of twenty -one years are excluded, they shall not be calculated in the basis 
of representation. You find these men asking the people, and you find people 
asking you, if the Southern States only had a certain amount of representation 
when all the blacks were slaves, before the rebellion, why they should have any 
greater representation now ? And it is a question which strikes men very forcibly. 
They say, perhajis justly — I am not disposed now to dispute the jiroposition — 
that States which have been in rebellion should not come back into the Con- 
gress of the country with greater representation than they had when they com- 
menced. That is a practical and important question. It matters little what my 
views are, but I do not hesitate to say that if the amendment stood alone, and I 
was satisfied of the right of Congress to exact it as a condition to the admission 
of these States, I would give it my hearty approval. But first I deny the right 
of Congress to require the adoption of that or any other amendment as the con- 
dition precedent of the admission of these States to representation in Congress. 
They will tell you it is part and parcel of the war measures necessary to bring 
about perfect peace and harmony throughout the land. "When the abolition of 
slavery was required as a condition, there was sense in that, because all men, by 
virtue of the force of circumstances, admitted that the institution of slavery, 
which had been the disturbing cause of the war, and of so many irritations, was 
of necessity wiped out by the war, .and, therefore, as a necessary war measure 
for the sujipression of the cause of the war, there was justice in exacting it ; 



40 JDHN T. HOFFilAK 

and whether it was constitutional or not, the people of the South acqiiiesfced in 
it. Just so in regard to the repvidiation of the Southern debt — it would not d^ 
to let a people pay a debt contracted in the service of the rebellion ; whUe every 
sense of prudence demanded that the country's debt shoivld be paid, incurred in 
putting down that rebellioru But when these subjects vf ere out of the way 
tihere was nothing left necessary for the peace and harmony of the coun- 
try. And when Congress proi:)Ose these amendments to change the repre- 
sentation in Congress, they do it merely to perpetuate their own political 
power in the body in which they are acting. (Aji^plause — "That's so.") Is it 
not so ? Let us see. I take it for granted that there is no one here who fears 
that the few members of Congress who come back from the Sovith are going 
to be able to revolutionize and overthrow the Government, if they had the 
disposition, against the immense Northern majority against them. But the 
Radicals say the rebels of the South may unite with the Conservatives and keep 
them out of power, and so they want an amendment of the Constitution to 
diminish the Southern representation. See where this leads you. Is it not su 
startling position to be t^aken, that a Constitutional amendment must be adopted 
to keep a mere party ia power ? Some day New England may get so much 
exercised ui^on the tariff question, in favor of a high tariff, and the great West- 
em States so much exercised against the high tariff, that whatever party can 
get a controlling majority in Congress for the time being, may take it into their 
heads that they will reduce the representation of the other sectioru New York 
might take it into it-s head, as I think it will this fall, to overthrow these Eadi- 
eals (cheers and laughter) and elect a Conservative ticket, and the Radical 
members of Congress may suggest that its representation in Congress shall be 
diminished. Now, this is not absurd ; I am only showing just where this argu- 
ment leads you. It can lead you nowhere else, because there can be no motive 
for the amendment I have sjxtken of being insisted upon as a condition j)rece- 
dent, other than that of securing political and partisan power. (Applause.) 
Nevertheless, if it were in the power of Congress to impose this amendment, I 
would give it my hearty approval : I would be willing to approve it so as to 
remove aU the difficulty in the way of the admission of the States. I have had 
Southern men say to me, ' ' Sir, wrong as that amendment is, our people would 
adopt it to-day, if it would end this ceaseless and eternal agitation — not cheer- 
fully, but they would adopt it. But," — here conies the rub — " Congress never 
meant, when they suggested those amendments, that the people of the South 
should ever adopt them." I will tell you why. They added another amendment 
which proscribes a large class of the people of the South forever from any share 
in the government of the nation, or of the States. They proclaim by these 
amendments that no man who has taken the oath as Congressman, or judge, or 
member of a State Legislature, shall evex again hold a seat in Congress, al- 
though he may have been a member of the Legislature of a Southern State 
twenty years ago. It is very well to say that men who have been in rebellion 
shall not have seats in Congress, but it is not very well to say that any people 
shall be asked to proscribe, by their own act, the men with whom they have 
been in mtimate association all their lives. It is not all very well to say that a 
family shall be called upon to proscribe its head in order to secure the right of 
representation in Congress, or that a father shall proscribe his son. It is not very 
well to claim that this country will ever have peace and harmony as long as there 
are a large number of men in the Southern States proscribed from all participa- 
tion in the government and its affairs. And this Radical Congress knew as well 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 1860. 41 

as jou know, that there is no people on the face of tlie earth who would ever 
consent to a constitutional amendment which would proscribe their own brothers, 
fathers, and friends — the men with whom they had labored and suffered. But 
the Radicals, knowing this, intended to go into this canvass and represent the 
people of the South as refusing to adopt rea.sonable amendments to the Consti- 
tution, and so tide over this election and the next Presidental election, and thus 
secure to themselves another lease of power. (" They can't do it.") If there 
are any soldiers here, or any sailors here, or in this town, who would see this 
question discussed in language so clear, so beautiful, and so expressive that it 
makes you feel how language is capable of expressing in the simplest way the 
most jjowerful arguments, let him read the address of the Soldiers and Sailors' 
Convention which assembled in Cleveland several days ago ; and I tnist the gen- 
tlemen controlling the organization of this district will put it in circulation, and 
see that it is in the hands of every voter in the district. It is full of sense, it is 
unanswerable in argument, it is convincing and conclusive, and no man can rea- 
son against it for a moment. Now, my friends, so far we have discus.sed these 
amendments. "We come to another practical subject, and that is — whether the 
people who are represented are sincere or not. The Efidical members, claiming 
to represent the people of the North, icJien they say that all that keeps the South out 
is their refusal to adopt these amendments, are not sincere. The best evidence I 
can give upon that, in the first place, is a fact as stated in the New York 'Times. I 
will read the paragraph. It says : ' ' There is not the slightest difference of 
opinion, so far as we are aware, in the Union party, and very little anywhere else, 
as to the wisdom of ratifying the constitutional amendment proposed by Con- 
gress." Well, my friend Raymond had some doubts about it when he wrote the 
Philadelphia address and read it ; but the circulation of his paper has been im- 
peded among the Radicals who did not like his doctrines, and so he has concluded 
to administer a few doses of Radical medicine. (Laughter. ) He continues : "It 
received every Union vote in the House, and is sustained by every Union journal 
throughout the country. The only point upon which differences do prevail, is as 
to the policy of making its adoption a condition precedent to the admission of 
representatives from Southern States. Ui^on this Union members of Congress 
were not agreed among themselves. Some were ojiposed to admitting them until 
after the amendment should have become part of the fundamental law, by the 
mtification of three-fourths of all the States. Others, like Mr. Bingham of 
Ohio, insisted that whenever any Southern State should ratify the amendment, 
that State should thereupon be admitted to representation. Others, like Sir. 
Boutwell of Massachusetts, and Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania, refused to pledge 
Congress to admit them even after the amendment should be adopted, and others 
stUl did not deem it within the constitutional power of Congress to impo.se its 
adoption as a condition of admi-ssion to the fundamental right of representation. 
In point of fact, the adoption or rejection of the amendment has nothing what- 
ever to do, as the law now stands, with the admission or rejection of members 
from the Southern States. A bill providing for their admission on condition of 
its adoption was rejected by the House, and even if every Southern State should 
ratify the amendment to-morrow, Congress has not pledged itself in any way 
thereupon to admit their representatives to Congress. " 

Now I ask, with what fairness and candor can men who represent the Radical 
party come before an intelligent audience and say that the only reason the South- 
em States are kept out of the Union is because of their refu.sal to adopt these 
amenckueuts ? But there is even a later evidence on that subject. The New 



42 JOHN T. HOFFMAK 

York ladeiiendeiit ^ which is one of the leading' journals of the Radicals in the 
State — I believe it does not publish Mr. Beecher's sermons any more, which may 
be considered another proof of its Radical sentiment — says : ' ' No leading Re- 
publican in Congress means to admit the ten waiting States simply on the adop- 
tion of the constitutional amendment." Mark that. It further says: " These 
States are to be admitted on no conditions short of the equal political rights of 
their loyal citizens, without distinction of i-ace. A reconstruction of the Union 
on any other basis would be a national dishonor. UntR the reiel States can come 
iacJc on this basis, they shall not come back at aU.''^ 

In plain language, imtil the right of suffrage shall be given to four millions of 
uneducated negroes just freed from the bonds of slavery, not one out of one 
thousand of whom can read or write, — until that has been done, the Soiithem 
States shall not be ag-aia admitted into the Union. Now if there are any con- 
servative Repriblicans here, and I trust there are, I do not ask them to read the 
Times to-moTTow to see whether Mr. Raymond has changed his mind again ; I do 
not ask him to read the Herald — (hisses) — to-mon-ow, to see whether Mr. Bennett 
believes that the country is radical ; hwt I ask him to determine whether he is 
willing" to plant himself on that platform that there shall be no union of the States 
until four millions of uneducated negroes shall be admitted to the suffrage ? 
These issues are getting plainer every day. I ask this of every man here. I ask 
it of every lady here — for the influence of women in the politics of the country 
is of itself a power, and I am glad to-night to see in this assemblage of conser- 
vative people that they are taking an interest in this matter. Let discussions 
njDon these subjects go forward, and let the women of the country instruct their 
sons that they shall never exact as a condition of the enjoyment of constitutional 
rights any such condition as that there shall be added to the suffrages of the na- 
tion four millions of negroes. (Applause. ) Now, to show you how utterly hollow 
is this pretence of the Radicals that they intend to give representation to these 
people upon the adoption of the constitutional amendments, and in order to show 
you the policy of hate, the policy of war, the policy of malice, the policy of in- 
sane frenzy which characterizes them, permit me to read an extract from a paper 
which I hold in my hand. It is an advertisement of the New York Weekly Tri- 
btrne, published by Horace Greeley, the man who asked the President — and I will 
only allude to it in passing — who asked President Lincoln to submit these propo- 
sitions to the country as a basis of adjustment : 

"1. The Union is restored and declared peri^etual. 

' ' 2. Slavery is utterly and forever abolished throughout the same. 
'"' " 3. A complete amnesty for all political offences, with a restoration of all the 
inhabitants of each State to all the privileges of citizens of the United States. 

"4. The Union to pay fotir hundred million dollars (400,000,000) in five per 
cent. United States stock to the late slave States, loyal and secession alike, to be 
apportioned pro rata, according to their slave poiuilation respectively, by the cen- 
sus of 1860, ia compensation for the losses of their loyal citizens by the abolition 
of slavery. Each State to be entitled to its quota upon the ratification by its 
Legislature of this adjustment. The bonds to be at the absolute disposal of the 
Legislatvire aforesaid. 

"5. The said slave States to be entitled Jienceforth to representation in the House on 
the basis of their total, instead of their Federal, pojmlatimi ; the xehole being now free. 

" 6. A national convention to be assembled so soon as may be, to ratify this adjust- 
ment, and make such changes in the Constitution as may be deemed advisable. " 

That is what Horace Greeley asked President Lincoln to agree to. Now hear 



NOMIXATIOX FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 1SG6. 43 

what Horace Greeley says — the man who has attempted in the issues of his 
paper to say that he who stands before you was not true to the Constitution and 
Union, and charging that in 18G3 I insulted the Republican party and its leaders, 
when he knew, and it has been published in other papers, though he would not 
print it, that in October of the same year his ovm Convention nominated me for 
• the office of Recorder, and sent me a letter in which they said my devotion to 
the cause of the country had never been doubtf al. Hear what he says, and I 
ask you when you read it to say whether such a spirit will bring peace and pros- 
peritj' to the country. 

"A political struggle rarely surpassed in importance or intensity has been pre- 
cipitated on the country by the treachery of Andrew Johnson, and some of his 
official or personal adherents, to the great and patriotic party by which they 
were intrusted with power. The aim of this treachery is to put the steadfast 
loyalists of the South under the feet of the ' whijiped but not subdued ' rebels, 
and to enable the latter to glut their vengeance on the former, whom they hate 
and curse as responsible for the most unexpected overthrow of their darling 
' confederacy. ' " 

In the name of Heaven, if that be true, as Horace Greeley says it is. how can 
he stand up in his paper and declare for universal amnesty on the basis of uni- 
versal suffrage ? If that be true, as he is attempting to make you believe it is, 
then the Southern people are not entitled to representation in Congress, or to 
association with patriotic men. He knows it is not true, but he circulates it to 
inflame the passions of the people, and mislead the conservative mind of the 
country. He goes onto say: "The recent wholesale massacres at Memphis and 
New Orleans were but conspicuous manifestations of the spirit now rampant in 
the Soiith, whereof the pro-rebel triumph in Kentucky is a more recent example. 
The soldiers of Lee, Beauregard, Johnston, and Hood are now the dominant 
power from the Potomac to the Rio Grande ; they elect each other to office in pre- 
ference even to stay-at-home rebels ; they have supplanted nearly all others as 
policemen of Southern cities ; they are organized and officered as State militia ; 
and they ruthlessly crush every demonstration of loyal whites or loyal blacks in 
the assertion of the equal rights of American freemen. The school-houses of the 
blacks are burned, and their white teachers subjected to violence and outrage by 
unhanged rebels, who relieve the work of murder and arson by cheers for Andy 
Johnson and execrations of Congress." 

Fellow-citizens, ladies and gentlemen, mothers and fathers of childi'en, friends 
of the living and the dead ! is it the duty of an American citizen to give counte- 
nance to documents like that, which are circulated in everj' steamboat and every 
rail-car in the country? And to what end? " Two copies of the Triht/ne for 
three months one dollar." (Loud lavxghter.) Why, a man who would try to 
keep up, in this country, the spirit of hate and vengeance, a man who would try 
to keep up the excitement which has kept asunder the States so long, a man 
who would circulate broadcast through the country such matter as that, in the 
face of the propositions he himself had made for the settlement of the war, and 
do it merely for the piirpose of carrying a State or a Congressional District, is 
not fit to live among patriots. (Applause. ) Perhaps Mr. Greeley may not agree 
with me. If he don't, I have no doubt he will take occasion to .say so. (Laugh- 
ter.) I recollect once trying a man for arson, who undertook to set fire to the 
Tribune office. There was a general impression in New York that the antago- 
nism between Mr. Greeley and myself was so great that the man would get off. 
But he did not. I administered the law as I thought it was my duty to do. In 



44 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

the midst of the riots, he had tried to bum down the office of the newspape 
which had done more to excite the people than any other ; but he had violated 
the law, and I sent him for the full term, and fined him the full fine allowed by 
the law. I believe that was one of the times in my life when I have been in con- 
cord with Horace Greeley. But on all political subjects I do not hesitate to ex- 
press myself thus plainly. And I am willing to meet the present Executive of 
this State if he pleases, and so far as my strength will allow me, to discuss these 
questions with him before the peoi^le of the State. (Applause.) My friends, 
you are weary, but I am not quite throixgh. (" Go on ; " "go on.") One would 
sujDpose that a Congress which demanded so much of the American peoiDle, could 
present something to their consideration which would entitle them to confidence. 
Through eight months that Congress was in session, and what has it done for the 
country ? Has it done anything towards restoring perfect peace through the 
land ? Has it done anything towards the diminution of taxes ? Has it 
done anything towards relieving the burdens which rest upon every man, 
rich and poor, throughout the country ? No. It has labored until the 
end of the session, not to reconcile the country, but to keep it divided upon this 
question, in order that the present election may be passed over, and, if possible, 
the next Presidential election, before the SouthexTi States are allowed the right 
of representation. That has been the whole aim and scope of their legislation. 
And they ended an eight months' session, in which nothing but this had been 
done, by voting $50 to $100 to certam soldiers, and $2,500 to $3,000 to every 
Congressman. (Laughter and cheers.) And with this money to spend, as an 
electioneering fund, they come back to their constituents, doing what it would 
have been well for the country if they had done seven months sooner. And yet 
we are told we- are to stand by Congress. It used to be, ' ' Stand by the Presi- 
dent." My theory always was, stand by the Government. Neither the Congress 
nor the Executive are the Government. Yet they say the man who stands by 
the President is a traitor, and the man who stands by Congress is a loyalist. 
Are there any such loyalists here ? Is there a man within the sound of my voice 
who thinks anything is to be gained by keeping States asunder ? If so, then the 
arguments of my friend who presides have fallen in vain, and the only hope I 
have for such, as some of these political preachers say, is through the power of 
prayer. (Laughter. ) The legislation of these Radicals is characterized by a 
spirit of intolerance. It is so in the national Congress, and so in the State Le- 
gislatiire. Wherever by the proposition of constitutional amendments, or by the 
passage of a legislative act, they can crush out opposition majorities, there they 
propose the amendment or pass the act. They have tried it in the city of New 
York, where we can roU up at any time an immense Conservative majority 
(cheers), and they do it upon the theory, as they say, that there are a large num- 
ber of people in the city of New York who are not fit to vote. ' ' Universal suf- 
frage for black men out of the State, and restricted sufih.-age for white men in it ! 
(Laughter and cheers.) Pile up your negro votes in South Carolina ; put down 
your Democratic Conservative vote in New York. We will do the one by consti- 
tutional amendment, and one by act of Legislature." (Cheers.) And so they 
pass a Registry Law for the State of New York, by which inspectors are ap- 
pointed by a partisan Board of Police Commissioners, and they send the inspectors 
from one district to another ; the native citizen is registered on swearing in his 
vote, but the adopted citizen, whether he be German, or French, or Spanish, or 
Irish, or whatever he may be, must jaresent his naturalization papers, and if 
they requh-e him, in addition to that, he must give evidence that he is the man 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 186G. 45 

named in them. Wiy, as my friend Mr. Keman of Utica said at Albany the 
other day, in view of such legislation, they will have a royal time in catching the 
votes of the adopted citizens of the Empire State. (Laughter and cheers.) 

Now, my friends, I have about done. I have said nothing about past politics 
and past associations. Eveiy man in the State who is called upon to vote for 
me knows that I have belonged to the Democratic party always. If that is a 
reason why a conser^-ative Republican cannot give me his suffrage, he and I need 
not talk about it. I don't deny the fact. I affirm it, and am hapi)y to do so. 
But if any one can say that by a single act or declaration of mine, in the strug- 
gle through which this country has passed, I have failed in my devotion to the 
Union and Constitution, and can furnish evidence enough to be submitted to a 
packed grand jury, I will be prepared to answer. Until he can, I stand upon my 
record. (Cheers.) I have no act of my public or private life which fears investi- 
gation, and I fear not to go before the people of my State and advocate the 
jjolicy of which I am to-day the representative. (Cheers.) The conservative 
people of the State of New York have united now in one great effort to put down 
Radicalism in the State and nation. They fight the battle in the limits of their 
own State. They do not look to Maine or Vermont, for the result in neither of 
those States dictates the course of the Empire State. (Cheers.) Let the tide 
of Radicalism surge, fostered by Radical legislation ; New York votes for itself, 
and has not yet reached the jjoint where she allows the elections of Maine or Ver- 
mont to influence her. What may be the result in Pennsylvania I do not say, 
I do not care. I hope and trust and believe that it will be carried by the conser- 
vative men of the State, but if the great influences fostered there by Radical 
legislation, and the great power of office-holders there yet in the confidence of 
Radical men, shall still prevent that State from acting in the ranks of this great 
conservative movement. New York will fight the battle herself, and establish her- 
self a perfect bulwark against the surging tides, come they from whence they 
may. (Cheers.) I stand as the representative of this party to-day, chosen with- 
out my agency, chosen because the Convention believed I was the candidate to 
be presented to the people — a comiiliment and honor which I have not deserved 
and which I appreciate ; mentioned as I have been with the gallant Dix and the 
other men named in that Convention ; and I am proud to know that, foremost 
among my friends to-day, ready to work and labor for me in this canvass, is that 
man whose name I have just mentioned — John A. Dix. (Cheers. ) I trust that 
after this election we shall be able to devote oiirselves to something besides the 
discussion of this great question of national policy. I trust that measures may 
be taken to prevent the wasteful extravagance in the expenditure of the public 
money, to develop the resources of this State in every possible way under the 
constitution of the State, to foster canal enterijrises and railroad enterprises 
wherever by being fostered they may add to the material wealth of the State, 
and thus we shall be the more entitled to om- motto of " Excelsior." Let us de- 
voutly look for this end, and earnestly pray and labor for it. As I came up this 
morning in the train, passing through the beautiful valley in which it runs, it 
seemed to me as if it was one of the most beautiful mornings my eyes ever be- 
held. The early morning mists were rising from the valley, creeping up the 
mountain side, and disappearing over the mountain top ; and I could not but in- 
dulge a silent prayer that the mists of prejudice, hate, fanaticism, and passion 
which threaten to overwhelm the land, might disappear as they disappeared, and 
vanish in the clouds. (Applause.) And as I rode along I saw the doors of the 
laborers in the farm-houses standing open ; I saw the smoke from the early fire 



4:6 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

curling iip into the morning. I saw the cattle feeding, as it were, upon the 
thousand hills. I saw the little ones playing around the doors of the houses 
while the father went forth to his labor. I saw around me peace, plenty, happi- 
ness, greatness, and power. I said to myself. This land has passed through a 
struggle, but this State, with all it has suffered, does not to-day know what war 
is. Then I thought of the ravaged and desolated plains of the South, the ter- 
rible judgments visited on them for their rebellion on the Constitution of the 
United States — judgments which they admit they deserve — judgments which 
Heaven sent upon them ; I thought of States so poor that they could hardly carry 
on their own local governments ; with a people so poor that they could not hardly 
furnish the necessities of life ; with households so desolate that there was hardly 
one in which a father or son or brother had not been taken away. I thought of 
their utter submission to the Constitution of the countiy and the results of the 
war. I saw them standing there, jjleading with Northern men, now that the war 
is over, to let peace and good-will return to the country. I saw them with out- 
stretched arms, saying, "Men of the North, we have violated the Constitution 
and laws ; we have suffered the consequences ; we are vrilling to abide by the re- 
sults, and in the name of Heaven stretch out your hands to us ; let the spirit of 
fanaticism, hate, and prejudice die out, and let peace and good-will reign 
throughout the land again. " And as I thought of this I felt that I could go 
among the people of my State with renewed heart and renewed courage in this 
cause, confident that the conservative men, withoixt regard to past prejudices, 
will earnestly unite in this work of restoration and reg-eneration. (Loud 
cheering. ) 

Mr. HoiFman spoke in Rochester, September 27th, in Buffalo, 
September 29th, and in Brooklyn, October 5th. All these addresses 
were profoundly logical, terse, and vigorous in their discussion of the 
great issues of the day. Mr,' Hoffman grasped the situation as with 
a master mind, and, in his arraignment of the partisan Congress, 
dealt the Radicals more severe blows than they received from any 
other source during the campaign. 

On the 10th of October Mr. Hoffman delivered a cogent and mas- 
terly speech before one of the largest and most enthusiastic political 
assemblages that ever convened in Syracuse. The following are his 
closing sentences, embodying points upon taxation, and the spirit of 
intolerance displayed by the fanatics toward our adopted citizens : 

And now, my friends, enough of this dry argument. I do not stand before the 
people of any State to excite their iirejudices. I do not want to excite their 
passions. This is a time above all others for a serious consideration of the ques- 
tions of the day. The interests of the country demand peace. We have had 
war enough. It has resulted for the glory of the country, because it has put 
down the greatest rebellion that the world has ever known. "We thank God for 
all His mercies ; but now we ask for peace. And why do the interests of the 
country demand peace ? We have an enormous debt, for the payment of which 
every hour's labor and every acre of land is mortgaged ; and the debt will be 
paid. But the land and the labor is mortgaged. My friends, the farmers who 
may have had mortgages upon their land when the war commenced, and cleared 
it by reason of high prices during the war, must not lose sight of the fact that 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 18G6. 47 

a mortgage has in effect beau given for every acre in the country, and upon the 
veiy strong right aiTu of labor itself. (Applause.) Now, if a farmer mortgages 
liis farm for the sake of keeping it, he does wisely. But after he has covered 
his f ai-m all over with mortgages, and has got half improved and the other half 
fenced, if unimproved, occupied by a discontented tenantry, who take no interest 
in the enlargement or cultivation of the farm because they have been excluded 
from a voice in what shall be done, he might better have never boiTowed money 
upon mortgage. The best thing he can do is to tear down the middle fence 
which divides the party, and say to the men who occupy it : " Go to work and 
develop the farm, and we v.nll meet together in the evening and talk about the 
management of this land. Develop your resources, sow your seed, put yourselves 
in condition to pay this mortgage off ; I want to do your pleasure." Now that 
is just exactly the position of the people of the North. We can pay it ; if neces- 
sary we loili pay it : but there is no earthly reason why these men of the South 
who have made us incur the debt should be kept from developing the resources, 
so that they can do nothing toward paying the principal or the interest of the 
obligation. This is not a question in which only the South are interested. The 
great North is intere.sted too. (Cheers.) It appeals to them. There is no reason 
why you should pay two dollars of the debt while the man south of Mason and 
Dixon's line will pay but one of it. What proportion of the income tax do the 
Southern States pay ? It amounts to nothing. They have levied a special tax 
upon cotton, but who pays it ? Tou tcho buy it. What have the Southern 
people done toward it ? (A voice — "Nothing.") Why? Becau.se they are do\^^a. 
I dined the other day in New York with Governor Jenkins of Georgia. He told 
me that in the State of Georgia, which is the Empire State of the South, they 
had resources enough to contribute all their share toward the payment of this 
debt. " But," said he, " we cannot develop them. Everything is unsettled. We 
passed last winter a series of laws for the incorporation of companies to invite 
Northern capital down there to develop our resources." Said I, " Why didn't 
you send up your law here, to let the people know what you were doing ? " 
'• Sir," said he, "we did not have money enough in the State Treasmy to pay 
for more printing than was needed in the jjublic offices." 

Now that thing would not continue if we had peace in the land, and if these 
men were permitted to go back into the Congress of the country, not for the 
sake of holding offices, but for the sake of feeling that they were again a part 
and parcel of the Government. You would find no trouble whatever in develop- 
ing the resoiirces of the South. You would find your taxation diminished, 
greenbacks nearer the value of gold, the income tax lessened, and the tax de- 
creased on everything you eat, drink, and wear. Mr. Lincoln said, in his plain, 
practical way, that it was easier for all the United States to pay the debt than 
for half of it. And you all know that this policy of separation compels the men 
of the North to pay more than their proportion of the debt. Therefore it is to 
their interest that this principle of exclusion should cease. Are there gentle- 
men here owning national securities ? Suppose the i^olicy of the Radical lead- 
ers is to prevail, and you had assurance of it to-day, would you buy more ■:* or 
would you sell what you have got, if you could get the present price ? Let us 
see. General Butler, who is in the paid employ of the Central Radical Com- 
mittee, delivermg speeches from one end of this country to the other, the other 
day took open ground in favor of impeaching the President of the United States, 
and that it would be done at the next Congress. (Hisses.) Do you know where 
that would lead ? I do not, and do not pretend to prophesy. But if you thought 



48 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

that at the next session a collision was to occur between the President and 
Congress by this threatened impeachment, do you think your bonds would go 
down or up in the market ? (Voices — "Down !") Mr. Butler is not the only 
man who talks thus. Look at Mr. Sumner's speech made the other day in Mas- 
sachusetts. Does he not talk about impeachment ? He does. And vipon what 
theory ? The madness of the President ! My friends. I do not .stand here to 
create any false alarm among peo^ile ; I do not think that is my policy or character. 
I give you nothing but the declarations of their leading men ; and I tell you the 
mercantile men and the capitalists of the great financial centres are becoming 
alarmed at this great question. And well they may be. It is getting to be a 
serious matter when Congress and the leading men of it talk about impeaching 
the President of the United States because his policy does not agree with theirs, 
when his policy is founded on the Constitution of the country, and theirs only 
on pretended amendments to it. But I give you only the facts. I want you to 
imagine the consequences. Suppose, not so bad as that, that these Radical men 
should come into absolute power at Washington after Mr. Johnson's term is 
served out. Suppose that such a man as Stevens should be elected President 
of the United States. And suppose, though perhaps that is hardly supposa- 
ble, that General Butler should be appointed Secretary of the Treasury— 
(contemptuous laughter) — or suppose some one like him to be, what would you 
give for your Government securities ? (Laughter.) My friends, in all serious- 
ness, any country on the face of the earth which has passed through four years 
of war, been able to maintain its credit as we have, subdued the greatest rebel- 
lion that ever existed utterly and thoroughly, so that there is not a vestige of it 
left in the South, can have no interest after that but peace. And the man, I 
care not who he is, who stands up before an audience of his countrymen and en- 
deavors to instil into their minds any other ideas than those of forgiveness and 
of i^eace, injures his audience, injures his State, injures his country, and injures 
humanity everywhere. (Loud applause.) 

Can it be i^ossible that the great North, Northwest, and East are standing to-day 
in favor of the exclusion of States, because, as some men say, their representation 
under the present basis is to be a little larger than it was before ? How many 
would it be— ten or twelve ? "What is the best guarantee that the people of the 
North — and when I speak of the North I mean the whole country except the 
Southern States — could have ? Mr. Sumner talks about guarantees for the fu- 
ture. "WTiat are the best guarantees ? So far as the South is concerned, the 
bitter experiences of the war through which they have passed ; so far as we are 
concerned, our great and growing power and prosperity. Look at New York ; 
look at the great West ; look at the enfeebled South, prostrated and subdiaed ; 
and think of the great and mighty North, East, and West wanting some guar- 
antee from this broken-down people. (Applause.) Is there a man within the 
sound of my voice who can draw a paper constitution strong enough to guarantee 
peace that is not in the hearts of the people ? (" No ! no ! ") Why, you cannot 
draw a contract between two merchants that one or the other cannot break if he 
means to be dishonest. I know constitutions furnish guarantees. It is all well 
enough as long as people mean to abide by it ; but when a man means to break 
his contract he will break it ; and, if in civil life, takes a lawsuit or damages as 
the consequences. If among nations, they take their chances for the arbitra- 
ment of war. But the only way you can have a guarantee is to have it in the 
hearts of the peojole. And when a majority tries to force upon a minority some- 
thing that is repugnant to their hearts, it only holds so long as power makes it. 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF ISGG. 49 

(Applause.) As Thomas Jefferson said, the law of the majority can only be pow- 
erful so long as it is reasonable ; and the moment it ceases to regard the rights 
of the minority, that moment it becomes oppression. And the moment it be- 
comes oppression, that moment it creates resistance ; and the moment it creates 
resistance it gives rise to combinations ; and when new combinations arise, what will 
grow out of it '? But there are vast changes to arise ; and, perhaps. New England 
sees it. Her power is a great power, and it hates to lose its hold. It controls the 
policy of the country. But the time will come when Central and Western inter- 
ests may be diverse from it ; and then the policy which they now apply may be 
applied to them. It is a dangerous precedent to establish. Mr. Sumner said, 
in his speech the other day, that the hammer and the anvil were at work, and 
the Central States must back out ; that New England would be at work on one 
side and the Western States on the other ; and we must look out. Excuse me 
for translating figures ; but when Mr. Sumner uses such figures, it is just as well 
for a matter-of-fact man like me to inter^Dret their meaning. (Laughter and ap- 
plause. ) And that is just what it means. (Renewed laughter.) "Take care, 
men of New York, that you don't go between the hammer and the anvil. Take 
care that when the blows are struck yoiir interests are not crushed by them. 
Take care that the spirit of New England, whch is the ruling spirit of the coun- 
try to-day, and her interests, do not override your interests." Take care, I say, 
that henceforth you devote yourselves to the interests of peace and restoration ; 
and let us hope that before another election shall come around, the people of 
New York shall have some opportunity to give attention to the matters of State, 
and shall not be obliged to devote all their time to the matters of the general 
government. The Syracuse Convention never alluded to the State in the whole 
of their platform. And the New York Ecening Post, which supports the ticket 
now, came out three days after the Convention in an article regretting that the 
Convention ignored the State altogether. States are ignored in this great na- 
tional agitation. (A voice — " That's wrong.") 

A few words and I am done. I would not come before an audience of my 
fellow-citizens anywhere and make an appeal to any particular class of them. I 
think it is beneath the dignity of a great party, no matter what its character ; 
and it is not worthy of a candidate of it to attempt to appeal directly to the 
passions and prejudices of any particular class in the community. I am told, 
however, that a dLstinguished speaker here last night, addressing the other side 
of the house, did make an appeal to a certain portion of the population of the 
town, in relation to the course of the Government as to the disposition of arms 
to Fenians ; in other words, that that gentleman attempted to inflame the passions 
of that part of the citizens known as the Irish race, by telling them that the 
Government sold them arms knowing that they were to invade Canada with 
them, and then took away those arms and arrested the possessors. With all 
deference to the distinguished gentleman who made the remark, I say it is not 
true. (Loud applause. ) Those arms were sold, as other arms are sold, by the 
authorized agent of the Government, to whomsoever chose to purchase them. 
And the men arrested for that raid have been discharged by the courts. The 
policy of the Government is to give them back their arms, and they will get 
them. (Cheers.) I beg their i)ardon, if there are any Irishmen in this room, 
for even alluding to the subject. I should not have referred to it had I not 
understood that the speaker last night made that misrepresentation. This I 
hold to be the policj' of holding one meeting after another, that a man who 
makes a misstatement maj' be corrected by somebody that comes after him. 



50 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

(Laughter and cheers). Fellow-citizens, I am opposed to intolerance everywhere, 
and I think the spirit of intolerance which now prevails through this State and 
couutiy ought to be done away. A little incident occurred in my presence in the 
cars on the way here to-day. Men professing the religion which we all adore, 
were irritated and excited because the President of the United States had yester- 
day a proclamation issued calling upon the people to render thanks to God for all 
His mercies, on the 29th day of November. One asked what business he had to 
fix a day for thanksgiving. That is an illustration of the spirit of intolerance 
which should be put down. I care not where it is to be found, whether in 
the halls of Congress or the State Legislature. It behooves you, ladies and 
gentlemen, in every department and station of life, to try and calm the passions 
of men. There is no hope except in the direction of peace. There its interests 
lie. If there is much to forgive, so much the better for those who extend 
forgiveness. And let men, from day to day, in the churches and the houses 
throughout the land, offer up the prayer which we have learned from infancy, to 
forgive as they hope to be forgiven. Let them remember aU those sacred words, 
and that the rule is to be applied not only by individual to individvial, but by 
class to class, by section to section, by State to State, and by a great government 
to the whole people — (cheers) — and that it remams now to be seen whether, this 
war being over, the American people can be as magnanimous and just in time of 
peace as they have been brave, self-sacrificing, and enduring in time of war. 
(Great applaiase. ) In the firm belief that the action of the people of this city in 
the coming election will vindicate this doctrine, I leave you now. I thank you, 
my friends, for the attention you have given me, and I trust there is no one 
within the limits of this town who will be offended at anything I have had to 
say, and that I shall leave it with at least as many friends as I had when I came 
here. (A voice — " You will, and more too.") Whether I door not, I shall know 
by the returns which we get from this town after the election on the 6th of 
November. (Laughter, and enthusiastic applause.) 

On the 23d of October, Mr. Hoffman addressed the citizens of 
Bingharaton, in a speech marked by its dignity of tone, logical 
conchisions, and calm yet effective oratory. He continued his 
searching arraignment of Congress for adopting a policy of proscrip- 
tion, and initiating a reign of hate and' discord throughout the Union, 
and reiterated, in firm but respectful language, his belief that the 
policy of the Radical leaders, in and out of Congress, was calculated 
to engender and continue the bitterest strifes and animosities among 
the people of both sections. 

SYMPATHY WITH IRELAND. 

Pausing amid the labors of the heated political canvass, Mr. 
Hoffman, on the 26th of October, 1866, addressed a letter to Presi- 
dent Johnson, upon the subject of the arrest and confinement of 
Fenians in Canada. The Board of Aldermen of New York had 
adopted a series of resolutions calling upon the President to inter- 
fere in the case of Robert Lynch, who had been arrested during the 
recent Fenian movement, convicted, and sentenced to death. Mayor 



NOMINATION FOE GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 18GG. 51 

Hoffman emphasized the work of the Board in the following letter to 
the President : — 

Mayor's Office, New Yokk, Oct. 2G, 1866. 

To His Excellency the President of the United States. 

Sir : I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of a preamble and accom- 
panying resolutions this day adopted by the Common Council of this city, and 
approved by me, asking the interference of the Government of the United States 
to secure the pardon and release of Robert Bloss Lynch and other Fenian pris- 
oners now confined in Canadian prisons. I have no doubt but the preamble 
and resolutions express the earnest convictions and udshes of the great major- 
ity of the people of this city, and it seems so clear to me that the pardon 
and release of these prisoners is alike demanded by humanity and great interna- 
tional interests, that I feel bound respectfully, but most urgently, to ask you to 
bring to bear all the influence of your administration to secure that end. I 
cannot doubt but such a course wiU bring about results most beneficial in their 
character and consequences. 

(Signed) John T. Hoffman, Mayor. 

On the evening of October 30, Mr. IIoiFinan attended and ad- 
dressed a meeting of 100,000 persons in the Cooper Institute. It 
was one of the largest and most enthusiastic assemblages of the 
campaign, made up as it was of the intelligence, the intellect, and 
good sense of New York's immense population. "VYe take from this 
speech of Mr. Hoffman the following extract, alluding to Republican 
assaults made despite the public endorsement of him by leaders of 
the party when he ran for the second term as Recorder ; and also 
embodying his views upon the commissions which were foisted upon 
the metropolis by the Radical Legislature : 

A few moise words upon the subject. Certain papers — partisan and venal, I wUl 
not teU which is which — in this canvass, although I opened it by declaring that I 
would not indulge in personalities, but would discuss measures and not men — 
certain pajjers have charged upon me various things to which I will not now 
particularly call your attention. But I ask you, I ask them, if they have ever 
yet been able to point to a single act of my official life which the people of New 
York would desire to rebuke ? (Criesof "No," "No.") K they cannot, or if they 
will not, then I come to the plain question I have to a.sk, as following upon these 
preliminary remarks. If there is nothing in my official life, as Recorder or as Mayor 
of the City of New York, which these men can put their fingers upon as deseiTing 
of censure, then I ask the people of New York, without regard to party — the men 
who have vi.sited me in my office, and in my house ; who have met me in the 
street, and applauded what they called my firmness in the discharge of my official 
duties — if they will not now rise above party considerations and party purposes 
and declaTe their unqualified condemnation of the assaults made upon him who 
now addresses you. (Applause.) If there has been a scheme which has ori- 
ginated in the city of New York, which has been at war with the best uiterests 

4 



52 JOHN T. HOFFMAK 

of the people, and it has not met my opposition, let them point it out. But I 
call upon the merchants and owners of real estate, upon the mass of the tax- 
payers in this city, who have given me credit for what I have done, now in this 
campaign, Avhen votes are to be cast for a G-ovemor of the State of New York, 
to say whether they were earnest in their approval, or whether they now prefer 
party to i>iinciple, and are ready to censure a man whom hitherto they have ap- 
proved. 

It has been said in my hearing, and by some of my first friends, personally, in 
the city of New York, that I have been opposed to many things which have 
originated in the Legislature of the State, and which they thought calculated to 
promote the interests of the great city in which they Uve. It has been said that 
I have been opposed to the commissions which exist here. I have one word to 
say upon that subject, and I know it will meet with your approval. Am I 
opposed to the Central Park Commission ? No ! It is a commission of men who 
are not partisans. It is a commission made up of men without respect to party ; 
who serve the city for the sake of the city, and receive no fee or reward for the 
services which they render. (Applause.) And as an individual, and as an offi- 
cial, they have always had my earnest, cordial, and hearty support. Am I 
opposed to that honorable commission which has charge of the charities of the 
city of New York ? No. It is a commission which discharges its duties withoixt 
partisan consideration or feeling. The administration of the great charities of 
this city was for the purpose of accomplishing the greatest good for the greatest 
number. A Eepublican Comptroller appointed four Commissioners of Charities, 
two of whom were Democrats and two were Republicans. A Democratic Comp- 
troller followed his example, and apijointed a Commission, two of whom were 
Democrats and two were Republicans. No man opposes such a commission as 
that. Am I opposed to it ? No. Am I opposed to the Police Commission ? I 
will tell you what I am oj^posed to. When my friend upon the right here. Gov- 
ernor Seymour — (great applause) — filled that Commission, he named two Repub- 
licans and two Democrats, upon the plighted faith of all men about him in pub- 
lic office, that they should so be continued until the end of time. When the 
present Governor of the State came to make his appointments, and the term of 
a Democratic member of that Commission expired, he appointed a partisan to 
fill the office, and the Police Commission became a partisan commission from 
that day. I honor the brave men who make up the force. They know, as I know, 
that for five years, in the office of Recorder, I stood by them at all hazards and 
under all circumstances. I believe the Governor of the State of New York has 
violated the faith which had been plighted when he changed a non-partisan com- 
mission into a partisan commission. (Applause.) Am I opposed to the Board 
of Health '? I will not disguise it ; I will admit that it has done great good in 
this city. But I tell you what I am opposed to, and what I was opposed to when 
the Board was created. I was opposed to any legislation creating any commis- 
sion vsdth great powers like that, and saying that the Mayor of the greatest 
city upon the American continent should not be a member of it. I am 
opposed to any legislation undertaldng to say that in the great city of New York 
the chosen head of it — chosen by the popular vote — shall not be connected with 
any other commissions that are engaged in managing the great interests of the 
metropolis. (Applause.) And I tell you, when men prate about commis- 
sions, and their great intentions to do good, search it to the bottom and you will 
find it is a desire to seize political power for party jDurposes, under the pre- 
tjnce of advancing the interests of the people of New York. (Applause.) Am 



NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR, AND CANVASS OF 18GG. 53 

I opjjosed to a paid Fire Department ? I will tcU you what I am opposed to. 
All honor to the Fire Department, whether it be volunteer or paid. But I am 
opposed to a paid fire department the heads of which are made up of political 
partisans — (aijplause) — who hold their caucuses in engine-rooms while buUdinga 
are burning, and while hard-working firemen are tiying to extinguish them. 
(Applause. ) And I appeal to the insurance men of the City of New York ; to the 
undenvriters ; to the men whose property has been destroyed, whether that is 
the kind of fire depai-tment they want to continue in the city in which they live. 
(Voices — "No, no.") We know that the men who make it up are brave and 
gallant men ; we know that everywhere out of the City of New York a paid fire 
department has been a success ; but we know that in the City of New Y'ork, made 
up and controlled as it is of partisans, it has proved a failure, as the records of 
the insurance companies and property owners show. (Applause.) So much for 
these Commissioners. I am in favor of anythmg which will advance the inter- 
ests of this great city. But I tell you the time has got to come, whether I occupy 
the chair which I now fiU, or that other position in Albany, when the peoj^le of 
the City of New York will make up their minds that they must govern them- 
selves. (Vehement applause. ) "When they will employ their energies and capa- 
cities in the selection of the best men for the public offices, and when they will 
rule themselves as the Constitution says they may, because it gives to the people 
of every county and every city the right to regulate their own affairs. (Applause. ) 
The time has got to come when the Legislature, having given to the City of New 
York the worst charter that could be devised, shall cease this business of trying 
to patch up the evils in it by creating a lot of independent commissions, in 
which the Mayor, the executive officer of the city, can take no part ; so that 
when my adversaries say to the people of New York I am opposed to commis- 
sions, I trust they understand now just what I am opposed to. I am in favor of 
the best government that can be devised ; and the first thing I want is a charter 
for the city the best they can have ; and the next thing I want is, that the peo- 
ple shall in fact govern the city as it ought to be governed, 

THE ELECTION". 

Thus, after a spirited and exciting canvass of about two niontlis, 
during which Mr. Hoifman spoke with great effect throughout the 
State, the campaign was brought to a close. In all of his speeches 
Mr. Iloflman expressed a wish to meet his competitor, Fenton, and 
discuss with him the issues of the canvass; but theliepublicau candi- 
date studiously ignored the request, and not until a few days before 
the election was his voice heard, and then in a puny speech devoid of 
substantial, consistent argument, and characterized by no discursive 
power of logic or eloquence. 

The election of November 6, 1866, as we all know, resulted in the suc- 
cess of the Republican ticket by the insignificant majority of 13,789. 
It seems to be at this late day almost a work of supererogation to inquire 
into the causes of Mr. Hoflman's defeat. The small majority obtain- 
ed by the Republicans shows that if a little more energy had been ex- 
pended on the canvass by the Democracy of the interior, the result 
would have been different. Kew York city did her full duty, as she 



54: JOHN T. HOFFMAN". 

always does when the principles of constitutional government are at 
stake. The result of the campaign of 1866 should prove a warn- 
ing to the Democracy of the State to conserve their strength 
and render their majorities so emphatic that neither local animosi- 
ties in their own ranks nor frauds in the columns of the enemy can 
ever again be given as excuses for our defeat in a State election. 
For later revelations make it certain that John T. Hoffman 
was defrauded of his just returns by Republicans of the interior. 
But notwithstanding these frauds the result exhibited a magnifi- 
cent triumph for our cause. General Slocum polled in 1865, 273,- 
526 votes, and in 1866 John T. Hoffman polled 352,526 votes, 
showing an absolute gain in one year, under Hofi'man's lead, of 79,328 
votes; and the majority of the Rej^ublicans was reduced from 30,000 
to 13,000, in round numbers. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EVENTS OF THE TEAR 1867. 

On the 1st of January Mayor Hoffman, as is customary, delivered his 
annual message to the Common Council. The document was 
brief, but forcible and able. The greater portion of it was devoted 
to a statement of the financial affairs of the city. The Mayor firmly 
reiterated his views upon the character of the municipal government. 
The various commissions which had from time to time been instituted 
by the Legislature had taken away nearly all the executive business 
of the Mayor, leaving him but little else than an empty title. He 
took a decided stand against the policy of parcelling the city govern- 
ment out in lots, and placing each under the control of a legislative 
commission. He believed that the peo25le are the only proper j udges of 
the way in which the offices of the city ought to be administered, and 
he regarded the old system as the safest and best. 

SYMPATHY WITH THE EENIANS. 

On the evening of March 13th, the Fenians of New York held an 
immense mass meeting in Union Square. Mayor Hoffman sent the 
following able and earnest letter ; — 



EVENTS OF THE YEAR 18G7. 65 

Mayor's Office, New York, Feb. 3, 18G8. 

Gentlemen : I have this day received yovir letter of January 31st, iiiviting 
me to attend a meetings of the citizens of Albany, on the oth instant, which has 
been called to protest against the illegal and unjust course of the British Govern- 
ment in its treatment of American citizens, as wcU as to declare their firm 
adherence to "those laws of our country which declare that the naturalized citi- 
zen is entitled to aU the protection which the Government can afford to the 
native-bom." 

I regret exceedingly that in consequence of the pressing nature of my engage- 
ments here, and the short notice I have received of the meeting, it wiU be im- 
possible for me to attend. 

The subject is one in which I have long taken a deep interest, and upon which 
I have on more than one occasion expressed my views very decidedly. 

The qviestion, "What shall the United States Government insist upon and 
maintain at all hazard;?, in reference to the rights of our naturalized citizens 
abroad ? " has become to-day an all-important one, and cannot and must not be 
evaded or avoided. There can and must be but one answer to it, and that is, 
that American citizens, whether by birth or by adoption, are all free before the 
world — equal everywhere-^owe no duty or allegiance to any government but our 
own, and must be guarded and protected by it. 

Our adopted citizens may be counted by millions. They hold the evidence of 
their citizenship under the great seal of the United States of America. It is to 
them the nation's guarantee of protection, at home and abroad. They have on 
their part abjured all allegiance to foreign powers, and have taken an oath to 
support the Constitution of the United States. We have in return adopted them 
into oiir national family. We have conf en-ed upon them the title of citizen, and 
have entered upon obligations to gviarantee and defend that title against the world. 

I cannot state my views upon this point more briefly and pointedly than by 
quoting from a communication which I had the honor to make to the Common 
CouncU of tliis city, on the 12th day of December, 1867, in which I said as fol- 
lows : — 

' ' The citizen adopted by us becomes bound up in our Govei-nment. In time 
of peace he performs aU the duties which good government, law, and order re- 
quire. In time of war he is, equally with all other citizens, called upon to fight 
for our flag, and to maintain our cause with his life if need be. Wo receive and 
enforce the duties which arise from this relation. We have simply to say, and to 
live up to our declarations, that we will perform our obligations, and protect our 
citizens against any and every power whatsoever ; to declare that citizens of 
the United States are free and independent. Self-preservation, as well as 
our dignity, our duty, and our honor requu'e that this shall be firmly and un- 
changeably asserted by our Government. Suppose in the late war to maintain 
our national existence, in which our adopted citizens fought \vith such devotion 
and valor. Great Britain had openly taken sides against us, and had sent its soldiers 
to fight under the British flag, on the side of revolt, for our national destruction ; 
the principle contended for by England would have made eveiy adopted citizen, 
bom in any part of England's dominions, fighting on the side of the Union, a 
traitor, liable to be ignominiously executed." 

Can any stronger illusti'ation be needed to show how clearly national safety, 
as well as national honor, is involved in this question V We know not what 
the futiu-e may demand of us, so far as foreign governments are concerned, 



56 JOHX T. HOFFMAN. 

but it is not difRciilt to see how this question enters into our very existence as an 
independent nation. The recent ag-gressions of Great Britain ag-ainst adopted 
citizens not guilty of any overt acts Avithin her ten-itory, -^-isiting that country, 
had revived this question in the most striking form, and it must be finally decided. 
The great duty of a State is, to its citizens, to maintain their rights and to pro- 
tect their persons. 

I am glad to see that the i>eople everywhere are giving expression to their 
views upon this subject, which affects so deeply adopted citizens of every nation- 
ality, and which belongs to the whole countiy. In my judgment the govern- 
ments of Europe will make but feeble resistance by argument (and none at all by 
force) against our claims, if we make them and press them with a firmness and 
a dignity worthy of a great nation. Let the people see to it that their repre- 
sentatives do their duty. 

Again expressing my regi'et that I cannot personally be "^vith you, I am very 
respectfully yours, 

JOITN T. HOFFMAJf. 

At the grand banquet given the following evening to John Francis 
Maguire upon his departure for England, Mayor Ploffman was pres- 
ent and made a speech, expressing his sympathy with the people of 
Ireland in their struggle to obtain the liberty which they had the 
right to exercise. 

Also at the sixth anniversary banquet of the Knights of St. Patrick, 
on the evening of March l7th, Mr. Hoffman, in response to a toast, 
reiterated his well-known friendly sentiments to Ireland and the Irish 
people. 

THE POLICE DESPOTISM. 

On the 9th of May Mayor Hoffman was waited on by a delegation 
of German citizens, who presented a petition stating that the powers 
conferred on the Excise Commissioners have been greatly abused, and 
that the Board had adopted rules and regulations which w^ere unjus- 
tifiable and humiliating to those who had to submit to them. They 
asked the municipal authorities to aid them in all legal measures they 
may adopt to bring about a reform of those abuses. The Mayor's 
response was as follows : — 

My Fellow-Citizens : I am glad to see you. I am glad at all times to have 
any of my constituents call upon me for advice and counsel. I have listened to 
the statement of your complaints. I regret to say that I have no power to 
relieve you. The same radical and intolerant spirit in the State Legislature 
which has forced upon the people of this portion of the State a law which, with 
all its good provisions, contains many that are odious and oppressive, has deprived 
the Mayor of this city of the privileg-es and powers which of right belong to him 
as the chosen chief magistrate of the peoi:)le. The same intolerant spirit in 
legislation which has conferred extraordinary power upon the Police Department, 
making the Police Commissioners virtually executive, legislative, and judicial 
officers, has made that dejaartment indeijendent of the Mayor and aU municipal 



EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1SG7. 57 

aTitliorities. The whole spirit of the Constitution of the State has been violated, 
and the right of the people of New York and Brooklyn to regulate their own 
local affairs has been taken away from them. Both cities have been placed under 
Commissions appointed by State authorities, and the Excise Law has been made, 
not for the State at large, but for a part of the Metropolitan Police District. 
Under that law, what is lawful in other parts of the State, even in Westchester, a 
part of the Metropolitan District, is criminal here. In regard to this law, which 
is here enforced with so much rigor and harshness, I have already expressed my 
opinion in a letter written some time ago. I need not repeat it. "We are all of 
us good citizens, in favor of a judicious excise law, to be firmly administered ; 
but we are opposed to intolerance and bigotry, in whatever form it may appear. 
I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, the Excise Commissioners are enforc- 
ing the existing law with undue harshness. They are unreasonable and unjust 
in their exactions. When remonstrated -ndth by those who have no interest 
except to preserve popular rights and civil order, their answer is that no one 
directly affected by the law makes any objection. They seem by their conduct 
to be laboring to create excitement and provoke resistance. They malce the 
perfect and complete submission of the people the iiretext for new exactions. I 
am very sorry for it. I have remonstrated with one of them whom I believed to 
be most influential, but to no purpose. But you ask me what you shall do. I 
will give you the best advice I can. In the first place, you must continue to obey 
the law as it is, until j'ou can modify it. Obedience to law is the first duty of 
the citizen. Some foolish men talk of resistance, but no sincere friend of the 
people Avill countenance that. The papers of this morning announce, by authority, 
it is said, of the Police Commissioners, that violence is threatened, and a riot 
contemplated. I hope it is not true. I believe it is not true. I most solemnly 
warn all people against the use of force. My views of riots and rioters are well 
known, and, to the extent of my power, I should deal with them in the future 
precisely as I have in the past. Your opponents would IDce nothing better than 
to be able to provoke you to violence. It would be gtciu to them, but ruin to you 
and your cause. It would change at once the current of public sympathies. 
Those sympathies are vrith you now, and are strengthening every day ; disturb 
the peace, and you turn them against you at once. The friends of to-day 
•would be enemies to-morrow. Thousands of good citizens who sustain you 
now Avould oppose you then. At aU hazards, therefore, preserve most sacredly 
the peace, and frown dowTi the first attempt to break it. Your obedience to law 
has won for you hosts of friends. Be piatifiit. But you can with prudence and 
with safety agitate. Hold your piiblic meetings ; let j'our S25eakers be well 
selected, and yoiu- resolutions be well considered. Keep clear of demagogues, 
who wiU strive to use your movement for their own advancement. Look at the 
immense demonstrations which arc bemg held in England, and see how rapidly 
they are changing the course of public events. As John Bright said at Binning- 
ham, " Neither Lords nor Commons can resist the peaceful expression of public 
opinion." You can do as the people are doing there. You can, in perfect peace 
and order, make a series of demonstrations which wUl astonish the people of the 
State. I think we have not yet reached the point when the right of the people 
to assemble peaceably to discuss public questions will be denied. Let me give you 
another piece of advice. Let your demonstrations be on a week-day instead of 
Sunday, as has been contemplated. Thousands of your friends, those who con- 
demn alike the odious features of the Excise Law and the mtolerant spirit of the 
Commissioners, love the quiet of a Sunday, and while they concede to all men 



58 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

the right to spend the day according to the dictates of their own consciences, 
they would regret to see it disturbed by the noise and confusion of a public 
demonstration. WTiat you want is to carry with you always the moral sentiment 
of the community. You can have it and keep it, and will be sustained by all 
except by those who have no idea of the liberty of others, in conscience or in 
conduct, beyond the liberty to think and act according to theii' own peculiar 
notions. I have spoken to you plainly and frankly. You know me, and know 
that I will not give you any advice which is not for your own good, and will not 
speak pleasant words to secure momentary applause. Do as I have told you and 
you will di-ive even the Excise and Police Commissioners to a course of modera- 
tion and fairness. If, on the other hand, you or others follow the counsels of 
excited or indiscreet men, you will lose everything. Be prudent and patient, 
and you will soon secure reasonable modification of the law, and place the power 
of executing it in the hands of men who can be just and firm, without being 
tyramiical and oppressive. The time is fast approaching when the people of 
New York and Brooklyn will have their rights. There is no power in the city or 
State which can withstand the popular will, expressed as it will be expressed. 
All men who think at all acknowledge that local government is better than 
Albany government. The experience of the past winter has taught our people 
that a corrupt Legislature can increase our taxes and our burdens, but can fur- 
nish no remedy for municipal or local evils. This is not a subject in which the 
people of New York city alone are interested. It concerns the people of the 
whole State. It involves the right of counties and cities and towns to regulate 
their own local afPairs. You must organize -with reference to it, and for the 
present make your political combinations, and regulate your political conduct, 
so as to secure always the election of men ojiposed to consolidation of power in. 
commissions appointed at Albany. The turning-point has been reached. The 
next election will show the people here to be almost a unit in favor of local self- 
g-oveniment, and against legislative oppression. They wUl insist that whatever 
excise law shall be in force shall apply to the whole State, and not to one section 
of it. They wiU rebuke that intolerant spirit which makes a rigorous excise 
law for New York and Brooklyn, and exempts the residue of the State almost 
entirely from its operation ; and they will condemn that legislation which forces 
upon us commissions and commissioners against our will, and deprives vis of the 
right conceded to others, of regulating our local affairs, and choosing our own 
local officers. I have said all that is necessary. Let your next movement be a 
gi-eat demonstration of fifty thousand citizens, assembled in perfect order, on 
some fine afternoon, speaking by its magnitude, its dignity, and its resolution, 
your determination to have your rights in the manner pointed out by law. 



AX ELOQUENT SPEECH. 

In May the great Fair in aiil of the Catholic Protectorate, which" i.s 
designed to rescue the Roman Cathohc orphans and truants of the 
metropohs from a career of ])Overty and crime, was held at their 
structure on Union Square. Mayor Hoffman attended on the even- 
ing of the 20th, and delivered the following able and eloquent ad- 
dress : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Vv'hen my very excellent and much esteemed 



EVENTS OF THE YEAR 18G7. 59 

friends, Dr. Ives and Father Quinn, called upon me with a request that I would 
open this fair with a few remarks, I hesitated ; not because I was unwilling to 
render service to a cause which commended itself to my judgment and my sym- 
pathy, but because I feared I could do but little to secure for it a success which 
I knew it deserved and desired it should meet. When, however, they told me 
that the ladies requested it, I felt that further hesitation would be unpardon- 
able, because, although I am enough of a heretic to deny sometimes the author- 
ity of " the Fathers," I am too much of a gentleman to refuse to bow sub- 
missively to the will of the ladies, which, in all frankness, it is now fair to say, 
is on such occasions with me " Lex Suprema." The privilege and power of 
mingling with the people, of addressing them in their public assemblages, of 
uniting with them in works of charity, of encouraging them in every good 
deed, of cheering them in every noble-hearted effort to relieve the poor and 
suffering of every condition, faith, and nationality, still belongs to the Mayor of 
the city of New York. No legislative enactment has yet forbidden the enjoyment 
of the privilege, or the exercise of the power ; and no commission has yet been 
created to monopolize the one or exhaust the other. I take this early oppor- 
tunity to acknowledge the obligations I feel that so much rightful authority 
still remains, and I am confident that yon, in the true siiirit of charity, in this 
place dedicated to charity, will, in all charity, join with me in this acknowledg- 
ment. Do not think, my friends, that I am going to make to you a speech of 
uncharitable length. I have no such intention. This is the place for actual 
deed, not for talk ; for spending money, and not for spending breath ; for 
good deeds, and not fair speech ; for actual acts, and not actual profes- 
sions ; for checks on banks, and not on patience ; for extracts from the 
purse, and not from the poets; for lavishness in expenditure, and not in 
thought ; for open hearts and hands, and not for honeyed words. And even if 
I desired to make an oration, how poor it would be ! The cause in which you 
are engaged, the noble charity in which yovi are employed, the destitute chUdren 
for whose welfare you labor, are all eloquent, and speak in a voice and with an 
emphasis and a beauty beside which any words of mine would be cold and 
formal. What ie there more noble, more powerful, than the spirit of true 
charity ?. ■V\Tiat voices can speak so musically, so pathetically, so eloquently as 
the voices of children pleading for aid ? What ear so deaf that it cannot hear 
when destitute and suffering little ones call for help ? What heart so cold that 
it cannot be warmed when good men and good women plead for those whom God 
in His Providence has deprived of a father's care and a mother's love ? 

There are thousands of these objects of chaiity everywhere ; in the crowded 
tenements, in the houses of refuge, and the prisons ; in the hospitals and in the 
streets ; you meet them in the highways ; you push against them at the cross- 
ings ; you find them crouching at your door-step ; to the right, to the left ; be- 
fore you, behind you, beneath your feet — everywhere ; poor, naked, hungiy, desti- 
tute, deserted, fatherless, motherless children stretching forth their hands and 
sending forth their cries to you, men and women, whom God has blessed with 
the choicest blessings, and supplied with wealth to be distributed among the poor 
and needy. It is your mission to provide for them. For them this building has 
been erected, and we are here to help to make it what it desei-ves to be and will be 
— a success. Many of these suffering children have been left waifs upon the 
great shores of society by the soldiers who fought the battles of the Union, and 
in whose behalf, a few years ago, the great Sanitary Fair was held, ujion the 
veiy spot on which this building has been erected. The erection of the building 



60 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

on this street for that charity was the precedent for the erection of this. The 
people of this city will remember that noble work. Men and women of all sta- 
tions, and nationalities, and creeds, vied with each other in making it the great 
event of the day. There was none so rich as to keep aloof from it ; none so poor 
as to refuse to contribute to its prosperity. It became a national affair because 
it was held in the interests of the defenders of the nation ; and statesmen and 
people, rich men and poor men, clergy and laity, soldiers and sailors, men, 
women, and children, joined hands and hearts, and made it great and glorious ; 
and it was great and glorious, as this will be^ held, as it is, in the interest of their 
destitute children, the fathers of many of whom. Catholics as well as Protes- 
tants, languished in prisons, or lingered and perished in hospitals, or died upon 
the battle-field. My friends ! it is well you and all the people should under- 
stand the real character and object of this great charity in the interests of which 
this Fair is held. It is in aid of the " Society for the Protection of Destitute 
Roman Catholic Children." I am a Protestant, and devoted to my faith, and 
yet, recognizing one God and one Saviour of us all, I stand here to advocate this 
cha,rity. It deserves the aid and encouragement and protection of all good men. 
This Society was incorporated by act of the Legislature of the State of New 
York, in April, 18G3. Its beginning was feeble in money, but not in friends or 
prayers. Its Board of Directors consisted of twenty-six gentlemen, the Mayor, 
Comptroller, and Recorder of the city of New York being ex-oificio members. 
On the 1st of May, 1863, thirteen days after its incoriDoration, its organization 
was completed. Its growth has been slow and gradual, but steady and constant. 
It has received, educated, and clothed more than two thousand children, the 
greater number having been committed to its care by the magistrates of the 
city and the Commissioners of Charities and Correction. In order that it may 
not be subjected to the charge or suspicion of attempting to proselyte Protestant 
children, care is taken that none but Roman Catholic children are sent to it, un- 
less by the consent and wish of their parents or guardians. If by chance others 
are sent, they are inynediately discharged upon the application of either parents 
or guardians. By private subscriptions from all classes it has received contribu- 
tions of nearly $250,000, and the patronage of the city and State has been freely 
extended to it. The State Legislature, always largely Protestant in its organi- 
zation, has made to it most liberal apijropriations ; and now, by law, the per ca- 
jtifa allowance to its inmates is the same as that made to other institutions or- 
ganized for the care and protection of destitute children. One great and commend- 
able feature about this institution is, that it takes these poor children out of 
the city and removes them to the country. It owns a farm in Westchester coun- 
ty. Large buildings have been erected upon it for the male children, and the 
noble band of Christian Brothers who have it in charge, out in the fresh, pure 
air of old Westchester, train these boys not only in the faith of their parents, 
but in the honest and earnest labor which belongs to the soil. In the language 
of the last annual report of the society, " Too much importance can hardly be 
ascribed to this feature in our system." 

" Not only in this way are the children made to feel that they are contributing 
directly to their own support, so essential to their independence of spirit, but 
also, that they are thus acquiring tastes which cannot fail both to elevate their 
minds and strengthen their manly feelings, while they tend to wean them from 
those effeminate pleasures and corrvipting associations so injurious to their child- 
hood in the city, and at the same time to beget and foster in them an abiding 
attachment for their new country life. Evidences of this result are multiplying 



EVENTS OF THE YEAR 18G7. Gl 

daily, and showing the wisdom of removing the institution from the pestiferous 
atmosj)here of a city to the pure and invigorating atmosphere of a rural district. " 
On the 1st of Janua,ry, 18G6, there were 572 boys and girls in the institu- 
tion, and nearly 500 more were admitted during the year ; the average mem- 
ber of inmates being about 000. I have said enough to show the general cha- 
racter and capacity of the institution. Its character cannot be improved, but 
its capacity and resources can bo and must be increased. There are several ex- 
cellent institutions in and about the city for destitute children. All honor, I s.ay, 
to the men and women of whatever creed who give their hands and their hearts 
to the work of carrying them on. But there is great need of more asylums, 
with enlarged capacities and increased facilities. The demands upon them are 
increasing more rapidly than their ability to meet them. The city is full of 
children, who will become vagabonds and criminals if not cared for. Take such 
children out of the streets and the haunts of vice, and place them in i^rotecto- 
rates and asylums, and then transfer them to the workshop and the farm, and 
you save them from the workhotise and the prison. The real effective reforms 
begin with this growing generation, and genuine and wise philanthropy turns its 
attention eagerly to the children who are deserted and desolate. Thus briefly 
have I spoken of the character and objects of the charity v/hich has called you 
together. One single word to those who object to the use of a portion of the 
public streets for the building for the fair. I agree with them, that the streets 
should not be obstructed by buildings of any kind. But I have alluded to the 
precedent established during the war, when the Sanitary Fair was held here — 
and it is impossible to deny to one great charity what has been granted to an- 
other. If all precedents established in the past few years do as little e^il as this, 
we shall have occasion for gratitude. Much as I object to all obstructions in the 
liublic streets, it is better, far better, to have a temporary one lilvC this than to 
have all our streets thronged with destitute children — with no roof to cover 
them, n6 hand to lead them, no protectorate to .shelter them, no home to receive 
them, and no hoi^e to cheer and comfort them. Better, far better to have this 
structure here for a few weeks, if it shall be the instrument of causing the 
erection of a great permanent edifice in Westchester, which shall be an asylum 
for houseless children for all time to come. Let all charitable people, therefore, 
in true charity and without bitterness, help along a good cause, and sustain the 
men and women who have inaugurated the movement. I know not in whose 
heart and head the thought of this fair originated, but it "was a hajjpy thoiight, 
and often great labor will result in gi'eat success. I have often stood upon a 
mighty .ship ; looked at it from stem to stem ; studied its machinery, rising, it 
would seem, from its very keel away above its main decks ; its timbers, bound 
and fastened with bolts and screws and braces ; its towering masts, its humming 
shroiids, its flowing canvas, its wheel, its radder, and its compa.ss, and have 
thought of the vast labor and care and study expended on it, from the time the 
first plane was laid upon its keel until it floated on the broad ocean, freighted 
with human life and human hope. I stand here to-night and think of the time 
when the first good man thought of this "Protectorate," and began, under 
God, the work of forming it, and how it has grown, in all its fair proportions, 
into a noble structure, freighted with young life and young hopes — and I look 
around this fair, full as it is of Christian women and their handiwork, and think 
how it has grown from the sm.all beginning of one little thought into the gi-eat 
and long (so to speak) triumjih of many hands ! I say of it as I say of all good 
works, God be praised, and God prosper it ; and the mystery of its success, like 



62 JOHN T. IIOFFMAX. 

that of all other things, becomes pleasure to me only when I recollect that 
*' when God plants the acorn he plants with it the law of its own development." 
But I am violating the pledge made at the beginning of my speech, and am 
detaining you too long. I know you are anxious to spend your money, and the 
ladies at the tables, who, like all other ladies, never talk themselves, wonder why 
I talk so long. I beg their pardon and youi's. I beg you to go among them. 
You wUl find abundant use for your money. I am told there are many rare 
curiosities here, some of which will be exhibited only for a liberal fee. I will 
name a few at random, and ask you to look for them at every table until you 
find them. I will not pause to separate them into classes, for they are not classi- 
fied. You wUl find them very much mixed. Portions of a reconstructed Union ; 
partial views of impartial suffrage ; frag-ments of seceded States ; specimens of 
legislative virtue of the olden time — on exhibition, but not for sale ; and speci- 
naens of legislative virtue of modern times— for sale as well as on exhibition (the 
price of which can be learned in the lobby) ; a section of a street cleaned accord- 
ing to contract ; a few of the herculean efforts of the contractor to keep the 
city clean ; a piece of Ann street as it is before it is widened, and a perspective 
view of it as it will be after it is widened ; an article from the New York Herald 
lauding Mayor Hoffman ; bottles full of the spirit of the press ; and a newspa- 
per, very rare indeed, which does not contain an account of a murder or an at- 
tack upon somebody's reputation ; relics of the mayoralty power in the olden 
times, and a full-size portrait of the corporation when it was fed on turtle soup ; 
chimes from the old bell-tower in the city hall, and another tower which has super- 
seded it ; an old man who was alive when the court-house was commenced, and 
who expects to see it finished ; some money saved by the economy of legislative 
commissions out of the annual increase of their salaries ; a few extraordinary 
powers which they have voluntarily relinquished ; a piece of a building saved 
from fire under the new Fire Department, and a sample of the spirit of the old 
Volunteers ; specie once in circulation in the country ; a redeemed greenback ; 
and the skeleton of a govenmient contractor, who died poor during the war ; ice 
from an iceberg ; light from Luxembourg ; and an animal neglected by my friend 
Henry Bergh, than whom no nobler-hearted gentleman lives in town. These, 
and thousands of other curious things too numerous to mention, you will per- 
haps find if you come here often, and visit all the tables and stop as long at each 
as it is your duty to do. Take my advice and circulate freely, not only your- 
selves, but your money. It will be the " medium" of many happy exchanges, 
not only of property, but of thoughts and i3leasant memories hereafter. But 
better, far better than all the curiosities I have mentioned, and all the poor 
jokes I have perpetrated — better, far better than anything I can say — is the 
grand collection here of articles for sale, substantial, useful, and ornamental. 
Liberal givers have contributed them. Let liberal ijurchasers freely take them. 
You will get for your money all its worth, and the article you buy, and the re- 
collection of having spent it in a good cause, will be the best dividend you could 
ask on your investment — a dividend payable not quarterly, or yearly, but daily, 
as you think of the destitution and suffering you have helped to relieve. Memo- 
ries of good deeds are exceeding i^leasant, and the minds of little children are 
as fresh and beautiful as the dewdrops in the morning. Let your united efforts 
rear a new bl^ilding for the Protectorate. Every stone in it will be a monument 
of your good deeds. Recollect that the greater the capacity of institutions 
such as the one you seek to aid, the greater the benefit to the community in 
which you live. Asylums for children are better than prisons and i^oor-houses. 



THE FALL CAMPAIGN OF 1867. 63 

Every boy and girl taken from our streets and dens of misery, and sent to a 
home such as you are preparing, is one new recruit in the great industrial army, 
which is working and will work out the destinies of this great Republic. Two 
thousand abandoned children are so many asjiects of evil, working mischief in 
ten thousand ways. The same children, cared for and protected, will in the 
great future exert an influence for good which cannot be estimated. I com- 
mend, therefore, the good work to your judgments and sympathies, with the 
fervent wish that prosperity may attend it and all who labor for it, and ^vith the 
earnest hope that the few plain and simple words I have spoken may not have 
been uttered altogether in vain. 



CHAPTER VIT. 

THE FALL CAMPAIGN" OF 1867. 

The Democratic State Convention met in Albany, October 3, 1867, 
and nominated a full State ticket, with Hon, Homer A. Nelson for Sec- 
retary of State at its head. Mr, Hofiman officiated as the temporary 
President of the Convention, and his speech upon accepting the honor 
was as follows : 

Gentlejiex op the Convention : I thank you for the distinguished honor 
you have conferred iipon me. "VMien I last stood in this hall it was to accept 
from the representatives of the ijeople assembled here their nomination to the 
chief executive oflBce of the State. (Cheers. ) This greeting you have given 
me to-day assures me that you do not attribute it to my fault that the battle 
you so nobly fought was not won. (Applause. ) I may be pardoned, I am sure, 
if I avail myself of this, my first opportunity, to thank you and the people of 
the State for the generous sujiport they gave to the ticket then, and to assure 
you that the city of New York, which gave for that ticket nearly fifty thousand 
majority, and I think I may say the county of Kings, which added ten thousand 
more, will be ready hereafter to respond in the same thunder-tones to any ticket 
which you may present to them for their support, let it come from whatever 
direction of the State it may. (Cheers.) I shall not detain you long in what I 
have to say as the temporary chairman of this Convention. I shall not imitate 
the poetic license and the fine frenzy of the distingui.shed Radical Senator who 
presided over the Convention recently assembled in Syracuse. (Laughter. ) I 
shall not talk to you as he did of the " Red Eye of Battle," which glared furi- 
ously at Syracuse then, and which words have become historic in connection 
^vith that subject ever since. He told those assembled there, and, through 
them, the people of the State, that the leaves had not fallen ten times since the 
banner of his party was unfurled ; but he did not call attention to the fact that 



64 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

of American lives there had fallen ten hundred thousand since he and his party 
had placed the country under the despotic rule of the Puritan and the negTo. 
(Great applause.) He told them that, in order to deserve the lasting confidence 
of the people, the party must do something besides prepare for election, I tell 
them that, because his party has done nothing, it cannot have, and will not have 
the lasting confidence of the American people. He asserted that the past of his 
party had not been six years. I tell him its future in the State of New York 
will not be six weeks. (Cheers.) He said in 1801 that the life of the republic 
was almost extinct. I tell him that it was not so ; that the life of the republic 
still lives, and will live long after he and his party have been consigned to 
oblivion. (Enthusiastic cheers. ) He declared in 1861 that the Treasury of the 
country was bankrupt ; but he failed to call the attention of the people to that 
splendid condition of its solvency to-day, with three thousand millions of na- 
tional debt, with five hundred and eighty millions of annual taxation, with 
interest on that national debt of one thousand millions more than England has to 
pay, one thousand and eighty millions more than France has to pay ; and to the 
indebtediiess of the State of New York, equal to one-third, and more than one- 
third, of the assessed valuation of its property. The taxation of the State of 
New York is one hundred and eighty millions of dollars, or forty -five dollars for 
every man, woman, and child, and two hundred dollars for every voter within 
the limits of the State. He failed to call the attention of the people to these 
facts. I call their attention to these facts now, and ask them to remember it in 
connection with the policy of his party, which the Democratic party of the 
State is bound to oppose. After he had told them this, to cap the climax he 
foreshadowed the policy of the party of which he is the representative man, 
and which is this: That, having added to the power of the Puritan in New 
England, the power of the illiterate negro in the Southern States, the President 
of the selection and the election of his own party shall be suspended by joint 
resolution of Congress, and the Government shall be turned over into new com- 
binations ; and then, with a revolutionary President at its head, we shall wade 
through another revolution without precedent and without parallel ! 

Gentlemen of the Convention, when in my humble and feeble way I had the 
honor durtag the last Fall canvass to discuss the issues of the campaign before 
the people of the State, I endeavored to show them that the constitutional 
amendments which were then discussed were not the real issues of the canvass 
— that they were put forward merely as covers for more dangerous and 
more destructive schemes. I told them that the real policy of the Radi- 
cal party in power was what to-day the Convention of Syracuse has itself 
declared — universal negro suffrage, not only in the Southern States, but 
in the Northern States — the suspension and impeachment of the Presi- 
dent of their own choice, and the putting in his place a President of their own 
selection. Everywhere I went I was charged by my Radical opponents with 
making upon that subject partisan harangues, and that the issues of the day 
were not really as I declared they were. I appeal to the record to show 
whether the declarations which by myself, and others with me, were then j^ut 
forth have not been verified by history. They stand to-day where then Butler, 
and Greeley, and Phillips, and others of that stamp, declared they would stand. 
The mask and the cover has been thrown off, and the policy so distinctly fore- 
shadowed is the policy that has been announced and avowed by the chairman 
of that Convention. I do not propose to discuss it here. I am prepared, to the 
extent of my ability, and my power, and my time, to go among the people and 



THE FALL CAMPAIGNT OF 18G7. 65 

present distinctly to them, iu connection with, other questions, the issue — Shall 
the Puritan of New England with the negro of the South rule the destinies of 
the American country, or shall the country be governed by the people ? I 
leave that for you by your voices to determine. Gentlemen, the difference 
between the Radical Puritan idea of government and the Democratic idea of 
government is very marked and veiy distinct. The Radical Puritan insists 
upon it that the best government is that v/hich governs the most. The Demo- 
crat insists upon it that the best government is that which governs the leant. 
There is the distinction. (Loud applause.) The Radical, acting upon his 
theory of government, commences his initial policy and allows for no honest 
difference of opinion. He steps into a Rump Congress and enacts laws which 
he declares are superior to the Constitution of his country. He insists upon it that 
his Puritan ideas shall be the dominant ideas of the country, beneath which 
every other idea shall sink : nothing is so sacred that it must not submit to his 
wishes. No view, however honest, can be considered honest ; no view, how- 
ever patriotic, can be considered patriotic, if it happen to be at war with his. 
From the nation it comes to the State, and what then ? He declares that the 
rights of the people of the State, secured to them by the Constitution of the 
country, shall not be protected and maintained. He declares that the sove- 
reign State of New York shall be regulated by an amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States ; and when the Puritan comes to a Democratic State, that 
is particularly the place for Puritanic ideas to enter, what then ? Odious registiy 
laws, which make a distinction between the adopted citizens and the native 
citizens, which declare that the adopted citizens shall not be registered, so his 
vote can be given, unless he produce further evidence of his right to vote than 
that of citizenship, and which say that papers given under his oath, and which 
would not be rejected in the courts of this State or anywhere else, shall not 
be received at the place of registry. Having done that, having raised his voice 
against adopted citizens of the country by making them a class apart, he goes 
among them and tells them he is their friend ; but he does not stop there. He 
applies to cities such as New York and Brooklyn — the hearts of the Metropolitan 
District — a law which I do not hesitate to declare, in its pro\-isions, to be odious, 
oppressive, harsh, and unjust. He declares what men shall drink, and when 
they shall drink it. He undertakes to impose upon them his ideas as to how 
one day shall be spent and how another shall be spent. He makes an odious 
excise law and intrusts its execution to oificers of his own selection, who admin- 
ister the law with despotic rigor. He intrusts its execution to men who, wher- 
ever they go, degrade and disgrace the American character ; for a man who 
plays the part of a spy upon the conduct of an American citizen in his house or 
place of business degrades himself and disgraces the character of those he 
represents. (Loud ajiiilause.) Having made these laws, laws which arc repul- 
sive to the common sense of nearly the whole community ; having refused to 
the Legislature any power to modify them ; having provided for their execu- 
tion in the most repulsive manner, they meet in nominating convention at Syra- 
cuse, and at its close pass a resolution by which they seek to escape the conse- 
quences of their o^^^l acts — a resolution which the journals of the State desig- 
nate as the "lager-beer resolution" — (derisive laughter) — a resolution. I 
venture to say, more serious in its character that any of the illicit whiskey that 
is distilled from the vats of some Radical invaders of the Internal Revenue law. 
(Great laughter). 
I say here that a party which has the control of the legislative and executive 



6(3 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

power of the State, which has power to amend and modify the laws they find op- 
pressive, harsh, and unjust, cannot escape the responsibility of such legislation. 
No party in a legislature having the power has any moral right to pass any law 
which interferes with the life -long habits and customs of the people, which are 
as harmless as they are universal. (Applause.) I am in favor of just excise laws, 
with every man within the hearing of my voice. The Democratic party, with all 
just parties, has been in favor of just and well-regulated excise laws. The ob- 
ject of all laws is to preserve order, and prevent one man doing an injury to his 
neighbor, and when it has accomplished that its object has ceased, and the law 
should cease to operate. I insist with you, and I believe that the Democratic party 
insists with me, that injustice is none the less oppressive because it comes in the 
form of a law. Now, my friends, there are great questions to be discussed. I 
can barely allude to them— only to one or two. I have referred to the 
subject of the national debt, to the immensity of the taxation in the nation and 
the 'State. I desire to ask the people of this State, not only the rich who hold 
the bonds of the government, not only the capitalist whose property is in the 
State, but every poor man who has his dollar or his hundred dollars deposited in 
the savings bank, every man who has a home, be it ever so humble, whether he 
thinks the securities of the government will be worth any more, or taxes upon the 
people be made any less, if the powers of the Republican party shall be 
perpetuated? Under the same conditions, I ask the men who hold gov- 
ernment securities which are exempt from taxation ; I ask men who do not hold 
government securities, but who pay taxes, whether they think their securities 
will be worth more or their taxes be less if the country is controlled by the 
Puritan and negro, with a Revolutionary President at their head, and a Repub- 
lican Congress ? What remedy do you propose, they may ask ? I will tell you 
what I propose. The first is, to oust from power the party who has brought 
difficulty upon us. (Applause.) It is time enough to give them details when 
we have the power to execute them. We do not propose— I do not at least — to 
discuss the question of the national debt. I simply say this to place myself 
right upon the record. I declare the honor, the good faith of the country is 
pledged, every dollar of the property of the country is pledged, every right arm 
of labor in the country is pledged, every energy of the country is pledged to the 
payment of every dollar of the national debt, honestly and fully, not only ac- 
cording to the letter, but according to the spirit of the bond. (Applause.) It 
is time enough to discuss the question how it is to be paid, and when it is to be 
paid when a party can come in power which can inaugurate a system of econo- 
my in the place of a system of extravagance — a party which will give ten inde- 
pendent loyal States back to the Union instead of five military despotisms— (ap- 
plause) — a party which will develop the resources of the South as well as of the 
North — which will enable every man in every section of the country to put his 
shoulder to the wheel and contribute his portion towards the payment of the 
national debt, and which will relieve the Northern States from the burdens 
which now rest upon them to pay the whole of it. That is all I propose to say 
in regard to the national debt, and how it is to be paid, to-day. But I tell the 
rich and the poor, the old and the young, that it is of no use to pay it, either 
in gold or in currency, so long as the country is kept comparatively in a state of 
war. Union, harmony, peace, and restoration is what is needed. Then our se- 
curities will become worth their face in gold. 

Now, gentlemen, in looking back over the last few years of strife and civil 
war, I desire to say that I honor every man who, according to his conscientious 



THE FxVLL CAMPAIGN OF 1807. 67 

convictions and the exercise of his judgment and talent which his God has given 
him, devoted himself to the preservation of the Union which was the common 
glory of the American people. Our adversaries may claim it to have been the 
victory of a party ; we know it to have been the victory of a patriotic people. 
(Applause.) They gave millions from the treasury and hundreds of thousands 
of lives, and have planted again the American flag in the capital of every State ; 
they demanded peace, union, harmony, order, law and Constitutional Govern- 
ment. More than two years have elapsed, and they have not obtained either. I 
appeal to the State, the merchant, the fanner and the laborer, whether to-day 
we are as near to peace, harmony and prosperity as we were one year ago ? An 
immense volume of paper ciurency has corrupted the people ; commerce is de- 
clining ; American shijiping is destroyed ; the nation is groaning under the heavy 
burden of debt and taxation. The power of the Legislature is transfeiTcd to the 
military, and the Constitution is no longer the law of the land. Extravagance 
rules in the nation and in the States. We have no peace, and, as long as the 
party now in power is continued in its supremacy, we will have no peace. 
Gentlemen may cry " Peace ! peace ! but there is no peace." In our own State 
we have had a Legislature which, if common report is to be believed, is full of 
corruption without precedent and without parallel. Frauds perpetrated in re- 
gard to the canal contracts and canal management have been spread before the 
people in such manner as to astound them. The Radical party controlling the 
Constitutional Convention have frittered away the time and money of the 
peoi^le, and have refused to submit questions which they made issues before the 
people, and have adjourned to save themselves from the disgrace which would 
come VLpon them, coming out in the beginning, as they did, the avowed advo- 
cates of negro suffrage in the States. Within a week of the meeting at Syra- 
cuse they voted down the proposition to submit the question to the people. All 
we ask is to let it go before the people, and, so far as I am concerned, to let it 
go before the people without discussion and without argument. They refuse 
to do this, and they must take the consequences. I rejoice in the spirit which 
seems to animate the members of this Convention, not only as manifested here, 
but in the interviews I have had the pleasure to hold with them. It gives evi- 
dence of a determination which I cannot but admire, which tells of an earnest 
campaign, to be followed by a great and glorious victory. I feel confident 
every member of this Convention will so shape his course in the adoption of re- 
solutions, and in the selection of candidates, that personal feelings and preju- 
dices shall give way, that all may labor for the common good, and the result 
will be that before the lapse of autumn that party, which for its corruption, its 
extravagance, its folly, and its recklessness, is without precedent and without 
parallel, will be displaced. (Prolonged applause. ) 



On the 30th of October, at an enthusiastic ratification meeting of 
the Democracy, at Morrisania, Westchester county, Mayor Hoffman 
was present and delivered one of the most marked and eifective 
speeches of the campaign. He commenced by referring to the issues 
in the State, and then treated in a mas'erly manner the effect of the 
Radical legislation and the so-called reconstruction measures of Con- 
gress upon tlie South. From that he passed to the question of negro 
voting, Avhich he handled in the following manner : 

5 



68 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

There have been elections lately in Virginia, and when I opened the Neio 
York Trlhune the first thing that greeted me was this great line, ''All hail, 
Virginia ! " It seems that the Republicans carried their ticket by 30,000 — all 
negro votes ! "All hail, Virginia!" — they may well rejoice while they can. 
But what will the Tribune say when on the morning of the 6th November the 
returns of this State show that there is a Democratic majorityof 30,000 ? (Laughter 
and cheers. ) What an immense white vote that will be to echo back the vote of 
Virginia. (Applause. ) I want the white man of the North to look at these 
facts ; and I am talking with men who own the State and rule the State, and 
who I hope will own the State and rule the State forever. (Cheers.) Have 
you read the accounts of those elections in Virginia, which were secured by the 
votes of black men — or black men hurried on by white men living down there 
who could not make an honest living in the States to which they originally 
belonged ? Have you seen how in Richmond the victorious black men told white 
men that they must leave the State or take the consequences ? Have you seen 
the accounts of how, at the polling places, the leaders of the Radical party 
handed folded tickets to the negroes, and when a black man was asked, ' ' How 
did you vote?" he replied, "Dunno; I put in a piece of paper he gim' me ! " 
(Cheers and laughter.) Have you seen how that, while there is a very strict 
registry law in the State of New York, there was no registration of those negro 
voters that elected Hunnicutt ? Have you a recollection of those facts ; and if 
you have tell us, white men, what sort of a party is this Radical party which 
allows such things. And tell us whether these plans of theirs will meet with 
the favor of the men of New York. (Sensation.) Something more than this. 
This question of negro suffrage at the South is something more than a mere 
question whether the Radical party shall succeed in controlling Southern elec- 
tions — it is a question not only affecting Southern States, it is a question affect- 
ing the whole country. Go dowTa to the city of Nevy-York and ask the merchant 
how trade is ; ask him whether he has opened accounts with the people of those 
ten Southern States. He will tell you "No." Ask him if he has opened any new 
accounts with those new men down there, to control the negroes, upon whom a 
. Radical Congress has conferred the right of voters and the right to govern those 
States. He will tell you " No." Ask him whether these are the men to purchase 
goods and develop the resources of the States. He will tell you " No." The 
merchants are doing nothing with those men — nor any business vsdth those 
States. And what is the effect of all this ? Why, the effect of it is that while 
you men of the North are doing nothing — while you laboring men up here are at 
work from early in the morning until late at night to raise money to pay your 
taxes and the interest on the national debt — a large part of your taxes goes to 
support a military government in those Southern States, and a Freedmen's 
Bureau, the chief object of which is to feed the negroes and see how they vote. 
(Cheers and laughter. ) 

The other night, at a place where I was speaking, a man called out to me to 
say something about the eight-hour law. Well, I have but a single word to say 
about it. So long as the people of the country will encourage and sustain a 
policy which throws on the white man of the North the whole burden of pay- 
ing the taxes to sustain these military governments and this Freedmen's Bureau 
— so long as they do that, it is not worth while to discuss about eight hours' or 
ten hours' labor, for very soon you will have to work twenty hours. (Sensation 
and applause.) Now I want you to just look at this thing. There is more money 
spent to-day to .sustain the Freedmen's Bureau than the entire aimual expenses 



THE FALL CAMPAIGN OF 1867. 69 

of tlie Goveniment duriug the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. I shall 
doubtless be told, " Oh, that was a good while ago." Well, let it be ever such 
a long while ago, I hope it won't be long before that expenditure will cease. 
This Freedraen's Bureau ! why, what is it ? WTiy, our Radical friends, in Con- 
gress and out of it, have asserted that the negTO is the equal of the white 
man ; and accordingly they have conferred upon him the right of suffrage ; and 
the Freedmen's Biu-eau is to see that he votes correctly. Now, if he needs to be 
taught how to vote, he cannot be fit to have the vote. Why, you white men of 
the North, you don't need to be fed, and clothed, and taught how to vote for 
the Government. (Cheers.) You feed yourselves, don't you ? Yes, and you vote 
for yourselves ; and you don't want anybody taxed to help you do that. But there 
is more money spent to-day than it cost to carry on the expenses of the Govern- 
ment in John Quincy Adams' time, merely to clothe and maintain the freed negroes 
in the Southern States, and secure their votes for the Radical ticket. Do the 
men who o'«-n ten dollars, or one hundred dollars, or one hundred thousand dol- 
lars, think there is any more security given to the finances of the countiy b}' 
confeiTing the balance of power upon these men just freed fi-om slaverj- ? or 
does anybody think it will add to the dignity or honor of the Senate of the 
United States by sending thither Hunnicutt of Virginia, or BrowTilow of Ten- 
nessee. (Cries of " No, no ! " and applause.) The speaker then referred to re- 
cent Democratic victories in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and an allusion to the 
resolutions passed at the Republican Convention at Syracuse, where, he said, 
under the temi "impartial suffrage " was delicately veiled the Radical policy 
of creating a negro balance of power. He proceeded : The next time I took uj) a 
paper I saw there and then the proposition submitted — and I refer to it, although 
it has no connection with this branch of my subject, to show the spirit which 
animates this Radical party — and that was another amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States to enforce in every State of the Union a simple local 
law which happens to suit Massachusetts and Maine. . . . But, if the men 
who control the administration had had the statesmanship and courage to have 
conducted public affairs so that all the States would be back in the Union at the 
present time they might be deserving of thanks ; but though they have had all 
the power and all the money the peoijle could give them, yet two years and 
a half after the war is closed the Union is yet not restored. You are more op- 
pressed with taxation, borne down by burdens, and overcome by discourage- 
ments, than you were when Lee surrendered to Grant. (Cheers.) Now, what 
aboujj this debt ? There is an aggregate of annual taxation in the State of 
New York of $180,000,0C0, when you come to take into con.sideration the State, 
local, and national taxation. Now, how much of that do you suppose, appor- 
tioned among the voters of the State, would be the amount falling to each voter, 
if it were equally distributed per man ? Two hundred dollars to every voter of 
the State ; and forty-seven dollars for every man, woman, and child in the State, 
two hundred dollars for every voter, and one hundred and eighty millions alto- 
gether. Now, that is a pretty serious question. (Applause.) I don't believe 
that fact has been mentioned in any Radical meeting in Westchester county this 
year. (Laughter; " No.") But there is the debt and there is the tax, and you 
have got to pay it and pay the taxes. There is but one way of obtaining relief. 
How are we going to do it ? Not by repudiation. Thank God, the Democratic 
party never repudiated its honest obligations yet ! (Cheers.) During the war 
the Republican administration in the State and country repudiated an honest 
debt. Governor Seymour urged upon the Legislature of the State that under 



70 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

no circumstances should they fail to pay every dollar of the interest on their 
State debt in gold, as they had agreed to do. (Cheers.) He begged and im- 
plored them to stand by the honor of the State, and they refused to do it. 
Congress declared that a piece of paper, which bore the imprint of Govern- 
ment and the faces of some of the Government officers upon it, was worth just 
as much as gold ; but the people never believed it — (laughter) — and they declared 
that it should be received as legal tender for all debts, except interest on the 
public debt. They even passed a law making it a penal offence for any one to 
sell a gold dollar for more than a paper dollar. That was Radical repudiation 
during the war. The Democratic party never repudiated an honest obligation, 
and never will. (Cheers.) It is not the fashion of the honest laboring men, of 
whom the Democratic party is mostly composed, to refuse to pay a just debt 
which they owe to anybody. (Cheers.) It has got to be. paid. Now, there are 
a large number of States in the Union ; so many that I have almost forgotten 
how to count them ; and it is easier for the whole number of them to pay that 
debt than for part of them to do it. It is better that the ten States which are 
kept out of the Union should have a hand in paying it. As it is now, they can- 
not pay a dollar. They are kept under the rule of a Radical Congress, and 
there are no results of their labor. Let the Government admit these States to 
a condition which will build up their business ; let it reduce its expenses ; 
stop maintainmg an army in the Southern States ; stop maintaining the Freed- 
men's Bureau ; stop enabling national banks to get rich out of the interest 
on the national bonds; cut down the office-holders, .and millions of dol- 
lars will be saved to the Treasury, and instead of having $200 to every 
voter in the State of New York to pay, you would bring it down in a little while 
$100 ; and instead of $47 to each man, woman, and child, it would be brought 
down to half that. Our burdens would be lightened, and there would open 
before us a career of prosperity unparalleled in the history of the country. 

On the 28th of February Mayor Hoffman delivered an address at 
the fourth anniversary meeting of the Working-women's Protective 
Union of the city of New York. His remarks on this occnsion 
showed that he had carefully studied the condition of this large class 
in the metropolis, that he fully understood their trials and difficulties, 
and that he was in thorough sympathy with the aims and struggles 
of the laboring classes. 

His speech was full of practical suggestions and encouragement, and 
indicated his earnest desire to promote friendly relations between the 
employer and the employed, and to secure for the latter more satis- 
factory compensation for their toil, and success in all their efforts to 
improve their condition. 

In October, 1867, Mayor Hoffman attended the Ledger banquet 
in Philadelphia, at which nearly four hundred editors were present, 
and spoke of the mission of the jjress, its influence, and its power, and 
then alluded to its capacity for evil in the following language : 

I tell you he who forgets the difference between the liberty of the press and 
the license of the press, who assails private character, scoffs at religion, gives 



RE-ELECTION AS MAYOR. 71 

currency to falsehood, panders to the worst passions of mankind, goes with the 
public cun-ent whichever way it runs, encourages licentiousness, advertises all 
manner of evil, and circulates libels, may not have visited upon him the ten-ors and 
penalties of the human law ; but society will set its mark upon him, and, even 
while it tolerates and takes his paper, will shun him in his daily life, and leave 
him to pass through the world without a friend, and into eternity without 
regret. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

RE-ELECTIOX AS MAYOR, 

In his speech at the State Convention in October, Mayor Hoffman 
predicted that Xew York city wouhl give sixty thousand majority 
for the ticket that would be nominated there. The returns of the 
election more than fulfilled that j^rediction, and the moment that the 
result Avas known throughout the State, the Democratic papers in all 
sections urged upon the Democracy of the city to nominate Mr. Hoff- 
man as their candidate for Mayor. The World also came out in a 
sti-ong article in his behalf In fact, the rank and file of the party in 
the metropolis demanded his re-nomination. 

On the Saturday evening following the State election, the Tam- 
many Convention assembled at Masonic Hall in Thirteenth street, 
for the purpose of making the nomination. An immense concourse 
of people gathered round the building. The street was packed with 
human beings in every direction. There was but one sentiment 
manifested by this immense crowd, and that was the nomination of 
]Mr. Hoffman. So earnest were they in his behalf that they could 
brook no delay, and manifested great impatience for the Convention 
to organize and proceed to business. 

The Convention was finally organized, and John T. Hoffman re- 
nominated without a dissenting voice. This result was soon an- 
nounced to the impatient crowd waiting in the street, who greeted 
the announcement with cheer after cheer. 

Mr. Hoffman was immediately sent for, was introduced to the 
Convention, and briefly addressed them on the issues in this contest, 
referring to the manner in which the Radicals had taken power away 
from the people of this city and given it to expensive commissions. 

The opponents of Mr. Hoffman in this race were Fernando Wood, 
the Mozart candidate, and "Wm. A. Darling, the Republican. The con- 



72 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

test was between Hoffman and Wood, and the canvass exliibited con- 
siderable spirit. The Tribune and Herald heaped npon Mr. Hoffman 
all the abuse that was within their power. The Democracy in every 
ward were alive with excitement, and Mr. Hoffman spoke to the peo- 
ple in every section of the city. 

They liad an opi)ortunity to see more of him, to obtain better per- 
sonal knowledge of his appearance, manners and habits than on any 
former occasion. The result of the election tells better than words 
can describe it the impression that he made upon their minds. 

In his speeches during this contest he told the people that he 
should ask them for their support and their vote in 1868, as he then 
intended to be again in tlie field as a candidate for Governor. 

As already stated, the Republican candidate, Darling, was practically 
out of the count. The hopes of the Radicals were fixed ujDon Wood, 
and they aided him with all the power they could secretly command. 
No doubt they would have openly supported him if they had not 
feared the reaction of such a movement in their own party. 

So forcible and convincing were all of Mr. Hoffman's arguments, that 
they impressed the people with the sincerity of his intentions to 
administer the municipal government of the metropolis in a satisfac- 
tory manner. 

The election took place December 3d, and the result is briefly and 
significantly told by the following figures : 

Hoffman's vote 63,031 

Wood's vote 22,830 

Darling's vote 18,559 

Hoffman over Wood , 40,201 

Hoffman over Darling 44,472 

Hoffman over all 21,042 

Democratic majority in November 59,666 

Democratic majority in December 67,302 

Increase in one month 7,036 

By this handsome and flattering result, Mr. Hoffman enjoyed the 
distinction of having received the largest majority for Mayor that 
New York city ever gave for a candidate. In addition to tliat, he 
received what no other candidate for that oflSce ever did — a hand- 
some majority in every ward, and in every ward but two or three a 
majority over both of his competitors. 

Mayor Hoffman's fourth annual message to the Common Council 
was characterized by substantially the same suggestions in regard to 
necessary changes in the affairs of local government which dis- 
tinguished his previous messages. 



EE-ELECTIOX AS MAYOR. 



RIGHTS OF NATURALIZED CITIZENS. 



On the evening of January Gtli, a large meeting was held in Albany, 
in pursuance of a call to protest against the action of the British 
Government with reference to the imprisonment of adopted citizens. 
The following letter from Mayor Hoffman was read, amid great 
enthusiasm : 

Mayor's Office, New York, Jan. 5. 

Gentlemen: I have received this day your invitation to attend a mass 
meeting' to aid the Irish revolutionists now battling for liberty, to be held at 
Union Square on to-morrow evening, at 7^ o'clock. I am aware that it is some- 
what the custom of public men to approach the Fenian movement with a deli- 
cate regard for our neutrality obligations and of the duties enjoined by the law 
of nations. Apart from my sj'^mpathy for the cause of Ireland, I may be par- 
doned if I do not individually entertain any very high estimate of Great 
Britain's claims on us to keep peace with her dominions. When we were 
struggling for national existence, and the cause of republican government was 
on its great, j^erhaps final, trial, England gave aid and comfort — in violation of 
every principle of neutrality — on the side which it believed would work the 
destruction of our free institutions. Her people gave sympathy, money, ships 
and men, and munitions of war, to be used against us. 

I do not counsel, nor will I countenance, any violation of the laws of our 
country ; but I do not stand alone in this community in feeling no very keen 
sense of our national obligation to England, and an indisposition to go out of my 
way to seek safeguards for her protection. 

At all events, I feel no restraint in expressing, as an American citizen, my 
most earnest symjDathy in the struggle which is now taking place in Ireland, and 
my hope in its ultimate success. 

In the earlier days of the Republic, our Government did not stand on ceremony 
in expressing its sentiments in behalf of struggling nations emerging into free- 
dom. More than forty years ago, when Greece was battling for liberty against 
the domination of the Turks, President Monroe did not hesitate to make their 
cause a'subject of a message to Congress, and to express the " strong hope long 
entertained, founded on the heroic struggle of the Greeks, that they would suc- 
ceed in their contest and re-as.sume their equal station among the nations of the 
earth ;" and later, the Congress of the United States did not hesitate to express 
its sympathy for the fallen fortunes of the revolutionists of Hungary, and to 
tender an asylum in this country to Kossuth and his gallant followers. 

Should we hesitate to send words of cheer and encouragement, and more sub- 
stantial aid to the men who are now fighting for the redemption of their native 
land, because that land is not Hungary, or Poland, or Greece, but Ireland, and 
the oppressor is not Austria, Russia, or Turkey, but England ? 

To my mind, the ultimate success of the people of Ireland in establishing 
their rights is a certainty. It is impossible that a nation of men of coiirage and 
capacity, firmly united in the determination to be free, can long be held in the 
chains of servile subjection. Ireland demands the restitution of its ancient 
right of self-government ; that it shall no longer be under the yoke of a power 
alien in religion, in feeling, in interest ; it demands freedom, equality, and the 
rights which belong to manhood. 



74 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

If our Government proves anything, it proves that these demands are just and 
right, and our history certainly indicates the validity of revolution. But it 
should be borne in mind that revolutions which do not turn backward are suc- 
cessful revolutions. Unsuccessful revolutions rivet the chains of despotism and 
give a long day to the oppressor. I know not what may be the means of the 
men in Ireland or whether this is the fitting opportunity to strike the blow. To 
give the onward word of command in such a crisis of destiny to a people involves 
the gravest responsibility. 

Let us hope that they who are charged with the responsibility have acted 
wisely and well, and unite in earnest jirayer for an early, successful and happy 
solution of the troubles of a long-su.fEering people. 

Regretting that the brief time allotted prevents a more elaborate reply, 

I am, very respectfully, JonN T. Hoffman. 

We have thus far given several speeches by Mr. Hoffman, which 
show his pohtical views and his characler as a public man. We now 
give his speech at the New England dinner, in December, 1867, 
wliich gives an insight into his social characteristics, and shows his 
ready appreciation of and participation in the elements of humoristic 
discourse : 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : I am exceedingly obliged to you for the very 
cordial greeting you have given me, and for the toast which has just been read 
to the city of New York. It has been read without comment or ornamentation. 
(Laughter.) Whether it is supposed by the New England Society that I am the 
ornament and commentary of the city (laughter) my Knickerbocker modesty 
would not permit me to inquire. If I were a New Englander — judging from 
what I have heard here to-night — I should, in the true spirit of New England, 
modestly — (laiighter) — assert that I was a living representation of the truth that 
the people of New York are able to govern themselves. (Cheers and laughter. ) 
I must confess that I do not feel entirely at home here. (Loud laughter.) I 
find when I get into a New England church that I hear always a remarkable 
mixture of piety and politics. (Laughter.) I find when I come to a New Eng- 
land dinner an equally remarkable mixture of politics and pastry. (Continued 
laughter. ) I can digest the piety and pastry — -although they, even, are pretty 
hard to digest sometimes, according to my ideas — bxxt I have a constitutional 
aversion to some of the politics, and I must be allowed to express it. (Laugh- 
ter and applause.) I do it, of course, with all respect to the great mass of the 
people who are within the sound of my voice, and I should be sorry if anything 
I should say should tone them down at all, after the very extravagant and ex- 
treme laudations I have heard of New England ; but I must be permitted to look 
at things from my own stand-point. My friend, Mr. Beecher — I think I may 
call him so, for we have never had occasion to quarrel much with each other — 
says that Yankees in New York have a hard time of it. Well, I don't see why 
they are permitted to live here. That is some consolation to them. (Laughter.) 
They are x>ermitted to enter upon all branches of trade and commerce here and 
make pretty much all the money that is made here, and that is a great consola- 
tion to them. (Loud laughter and cheering.) They are permitted to express 
their sentiments very freely here, and that, with their notions of individual 
liberty, is a still greater consolation to them (cheers), and they are permitted at 



RE-ELECTION AS MAYOR. T5 

a New England dinner at a French restaurant to eat jiork and beans, which is 
no more like the pork and beans of their ancestors than is the luxurious style in 
which they live here like the simple style in which their ancestors lived in old 
Xew England. (Loud laughter and applause.) Now, if these things be all true, 
how can the Rev. Mr. Beecher — as he is an advocate of truth in so many cases — 
how can he stand vip here and say that the Yankees have a hard time in New 
York ? I have listened with great pleasure to his remarks. He has talked about 
the great ideas of the Puritans, about their opinions of the rights of conscience, 
and how they impress truth and morality upon the world. So they do — (cheers) 
— their own notions of it. (Uproarious laughter?) And yet I cannot forget — 
and certainly there is no heresy in quoting a New England writer upon New 
England men — that it has been said that the Puritan's idea of hell was a place 
where everybody was allowed to think as he pleased. (Laughter. ) Now, in 
saying what I have said, and in quoting what the New England writer says, I 
think I say nothing disrespectful to the Puritan character of the New England 
element in our nation. They have their own notions and opinions, and I am 
sorry to say, from my stand-point, they have had a very unhappy way of enforc- 
ing them upon the countiy. But I hojje the time will come, and I believe it is 
coming, when they, with all the rest of the people of this country, will concede 
the right of eveiy man to think as he jjleases and act as he pleases, i^rovided 
that in his thinldng and acting he does not interfere with the public order and 
the rights of person and property. (Applause.) 

Now, perhaps I ought to stop, but I am not going to. (Laughter and voices, 
" Go on; " "Go on.") My friend, the President here, intended I should stop 
at about this point, for he gave me a very bold hint in the course of his remarks. 
He knew I was a Knickerbocker, and that is what he meant when he said the 
old Holland maxim was that " speech was silver, but silence was gold." It may 
be that he meant it for the President of the St. Nicholas Society ; if so he will 
be able to defend the Knickerbockers of that society. My friend Choate, who 
has made a very happy and eloquent speech to-night, as he always does, has ad- 
vanced some new views of reconstruction, which pleased me immensely. (Ap- 
plause. ) He sjioke of the times when New England men will go to live in the 
South, and will take with them their pianos, among other things. I sincerely 
hope when thej' take that property down there they won't take any which they 
originally brought from there during the war — according to iDopular rumor. (Great 
laughter. ) In the present disorganized condition of the Southern States — with 
the courts in, to say the least, a very bad condition, notwithstanding that my 
old friend, Judge Busteed, is down there administering the law, and replevin 
suits may be plenty, although judgments may be doubtful — I would suggest 
that instead of taking their pianos they take their tuning-forks. (Laughter.) 
Now, gentlemen, some allusions have been made to my constituents in New 
York— not verj^ resi^ectful allusions, I think, to my Irish constituents. General 
Sickles has referred to the fact that when we get Ireland for the Alabama 
claims we shall be able to get oflSces for all your Irish friends who desire them. 
(Laughter.) I am free to say, gentlemen, that that would be a very gi-eat relief 
to me. (Loud laughter.) And it affords another reason why I shall always in- 
sist, as I do now insist, that the Alabama claims shall be settled and the rights 
of American citizens, adopted as well as native, shall be protected everywhere. 
(Applause. ) But while allusions have been made to my Iri.sh constituency and 
my Irish friends, justice has not been done to them. The President of the St. 
Patrick's Society is not here, and therefore I must make a slight reference to 



76 JOHN T. HOFFMAK 

the fact that they have contributed to the wealth and the greatness of this 
country. They have built its railroads and canals ; and in that connection I 
beg leave to call attention to the fact that the only canal I ever knew to be dug 
out by a New Englander was the Dutch Gap (great laughter), and that was not 
a very great success. If his notions of repudiation are not more per.spicuous 
than his notions of canal building I think they will i)rove as great a failure. 
(Cheers.) Now, my friends, I have only a single word more to say. You can see 
from what I have already said that I did not come here prepared to make a 
speech. I have relied entirely on the subjects furnished by the speakers who 
have preceded me. I ought not to sit down without saying one word about the 
city which I represent. Two years ago I had the honor to be the guest of the 
New England Society. It was a great dinner and an enthusiastic company ; and 
it was just subsequent to an important contest in which I had been elected to 
the Chief Magistracy of my city. I said then that during the two years of my 
tei-m I hoped I should prove myself to be a Mayor not only of the party, but of 
the city. I trust I have kept my word. (Loud applause. ) If I have I am glad 
to be here to-night. I am glad to be hear to-night as the representative of a 
city, the great majority of the people of which hold political opinions differing 
from those of the majority of the i^ersons before me, but who are true to the 
Union, the Constitution, and the laws — the greatest city on the American conti- 
nent, and destined in time, as I believe, to be the greatest city in the world. 
(Cheers. ) And one secret of its greatness and success is that within its narrow 
boundaries you find all nationalities, people of all sections and all States, who 
come together with their wealth, their enterprise, and their energy, not only for 
the advancement of their own personal interests, but for the development of 
the greatness of that great State of which they become citizens and in whose pros- 
perity they take great pride. During the war the city of New York, whatever 
may have been said against it and its people, furnished more money and gave 
more men to support the Union of the States than any other city in proportion 
to its population in the State or country. (Applause. ) When men were wanted 
they were called for and furnished here. When the Government was in pecu- 
niary distress, calls were made upon the bankers, and merchants, and capitalists 
of New York, and the money flowed lavishly into the public treasury. If during 
that struggle there were signs of things here which were unfavorable to the Gov- 
ernment, there was always the great mass of the earnest, patriotic people ready 
to put them down ; and the people showed themselves to be devoted heart and 
soul to that Union and that Constitution which they believed to be the common 
glory of all. And the city thus still keeps up to its reputation ; it still stands by 
the country, by the Union and Constitution, and it looks forward to the time 
when the feeling of true brotherhood shall be established between all sections 
of the land, and the time when partisan spirit shall give way to patriotic im- 
pulses — when parties shall be buried under the dust, and when statesmen shall 
rise above the surface. God speed the time ! Let it come quickly ; and before 
another New England assemblage gathers here to celebrate this anniversary day 
may the time come when every State in this Union shall be back in its old place 
under the Constitution of the country, and every star shall be a representative 
of the State in the flag, and when the war and aU its memories which are pain- 
ful and unpleasant shall have passed away from the minds of men. (Tremendous 
cheering. ) 



RE-ELECTION AS MAYOR. T7 



DEFENCE OF THE rRESlDEXT. 

On the evening of February 28, a great mass meeting was lield at 
Cooper Institiite for tlie purpose of arraigning the Radical leadex's 
in Congress for their revolutionary schemes and proposed impeach- 
ment of the President. Mr. Hoffman's speech was as follows: 

My Fellow-Citizens : I am not among the m^'ited speakers to-night. I 
did not come to make a speech. I came intending to be a silent member of this 
vast assemblage ; but I came by my humble presence to be among those who 
wish to make earnest protest against a gi-ievous wrong — (applause) — the perj^e- 
tration of which is being threatened in the capital of our country. But if I am 
to speak at all, I wish it understood that I speak not as a partisan — I am not 
here as a partisan — I am here as an American citizen. (Loud applause.) I claim 
to be here, also, as the head of an American city — (applause) — which numbers 
among its population 100,000 hardy, sturdy men, who to-mon-ow would cast their 
ballots in support of every word I shall utter here this night. (Applause.) This 
meeting has been called by merchants and bankers and professional men in this 
great commercial city, who represent its capital to the extent of millions iipon 
millions of dollars. It is well it has been done. It would have been a shame 
and a disgrace to the American nation if no voice went forth from its great com- 
mercial emporium at a time when a partisan majority in Congress were attempt- 
ing to overthrow the President of the United States under the mere f oi-m of law. 
(Great applause.) It is well that it is so, for it would be a burning shame, a dis- 
grace to the civilization of the age, if the men of this great city, and interested as 
they are in the success and prosperity of the whole country, uttered no word of 
censure and condemnation of that partisan act of a partisan majority in the two 
houses of Congress. (Applause.) ^\1iat is it all about ? A very simple story ; a 
story, however, which every man should read and understand ; a simple stoiy 
which, I regret to say, every man has not read and every man does not understand. 
I venture to say now that within one mile of this spot can be found the counting 
houses of men who transact, every day of the year, business to the amount of 
millions of dollars, who have not even read the communication which the Presi- 
dent of the United States sent to the Senate, explaining the act which he did 
when he removed Jlr. Stanton and appointed General Thomas Secretary ad 
interim. And inasmuch as they have not read it, and inasmvxch as there are 
manj' in this city who have not yet understood this question now before the 
American people, it is well that we should stop and see just what it is. This is no 
time for passions, nor for idle declamation. This is a serious time in the history 
of the American nation. Mr. Johnson, President of the United States, was 
elected to power by the party which now denounces him. I am not here as his 
advocate or his champion. He has done much which I applaud ; he has omitted 
to do much for which I censure him. He is the President of the United States 
l)y virtue of its Constitution ; not the acting President, filling out l\Ir. Lincoln's 
term of office, but the President of the United States by virtue of the Constitu- 
tion. (Applause.) From the earliest history of the Government the President 
has chosen his Cabinet. Never has there been an exception to that proposition. 
Mr. Johnson comhig into office upon the death of Mr. Lincoln, retained in office 
temporarily certain members of that Cabinet. ]Mr. Stanton holds a commission 



T8 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

which has been read to you to-night, issued by President Lincohi in 1862, designat- 
ing him as Secretary of War during' the pleasure of the President, for the time 
being. Differences have arisen in the Cabinet. It is no longer profitable or pleasant 
for the President of the United States to have in his Cabinet a man with whom 
he may have no communication ; a man who is at war with him, his ideas, and 
his policy. WTiat does he do ? He requests him to resign. Mr. Stanton declines. 
Senators in Congress, members of the House of Representatives, when the Civil 
Tenure bill was under discussion, stated upon the floor, and no man M'as bold 
enough to deny it, that it was hardly to be sui^posed that any gentleman, any 
man of honor, would be found who would desire to stay in the Cabinet of the 
President if he expressed a wish that he should leave. (Laughter and applause.) 
It seems — I was going to say — that they were mistaken. (Renewed laughter.) 
But perhaps they were not. (Cheers. ) It depends entirely upon whether the 
present so-called Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, comes within either of the 
classes mentioned by the Senators in this debate. (Laughter and cheers. ) But 
Mr. Stanton declined to go, and the President did what ? He issued an order for 
his removal, and designated a General in the army to take his place until a suc- 
cessor should be confirmed, and he nominated his successor. He offered no force, 
no resistance to any law, whether the law be constitutional or not. There was 
no attempt at resistance, nor disturbance ; a mere exercise of the power always 
exercised by the President of the United States and never denied to him, and 
that exercise, too, for the purpose of having the question decided before the 
proper tribunals, whether he had a right to exercise it or not. The President 
had taken an oath to support the Constitution of the country, and to maintain 
and defend it. Can he not do it by appealing to the courts for redress — -for a 
judgment upon the construction or the constitutionality of the law ? That is all 
he has done. What then ? Why, my friends, in less time than it would take to 
draw a declaration upon a promissory note and have it served within the limits 
of New York, one house of Congress, by a purely party vote, with two exceptions, 
voted to impeach the President of the United States for a high crime and mis- 
demeanor. 

Now, what is the law ? Mr. Girard has fully explained it. But one single 
word upon it. That jioint of the Civil Tenure bill which forbade the President 
removing from oSice those who hold office by virtue of his appointment and 
confirmed by the Senate, says that they shall hold office during the term of the 
President by whom they were appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject 
to the advice and consent of the Senate. The President has undertaken to re- 
move no Cabinet officer appointed by himself and confirmed by the Senate. He 
simply imdertakes to remove a Cabinet officer appointed by his predecessor, and 
who refused to do what members of the Congress now supporting him said no gen- 
tleman or man of honor would decline to do. I am free to say that when I see 
so great an agitation built up on so slight a foundation I am amazed. It cannot 
be otherwise. What does it all mean V Recollect that this Congress has been 
seeking for a long time some ground ui^on which to impeach the President. 
Within three weeks, I think I may say, a majority of the Committee in the 
House had voted seven to two, I think, against impeachment ; and there was a 
declaration almost unanimous that up to that time the President of the United 
States had done nothing which deserved impeachment. Very well ; if he had done 
nothing then, the only thing is the order removing Stanton, and substituting in his 
place a General of the army. Is it any wonder, now, that the 32d of Feljruary — 
which should have been devoted to a nobler purpose than seeking to depose the 



EE-ELECTIOX AS MAYOR. ' 79 

President — that the passion which characterized these men on that day has now 
cooled down, and that they are hesitating as to what kind of articles to prefer ? 
(Lavighter and cheers.) Is it strange that the telegraphic dispatches and the 
papers announce that the trial will possibly last longer than was expected ? Is 
it to be wondered that when Mr. Stanton's commission from President Lincoln 
sees the light for the first time since it was written, that these men should be- 
gin to ask themselves whether they are not in a little difficulty in this case ? 
(Laughter.) My friends, I tell you there can be only one reason for having that 
impeachment proceeding pressed in the Senate of the country, and that is that 
the Radical party are determined to get control of the Presidency in advance of 
the election. (That's it.) I venture a prophecy, if this thing goes through. I 
venture to prophesy, not in regard to members of the House of Represen- 
tatives merelj', but in the aggregate, that this movement wiU stand forth 
in history as one of the few, or one of the many things if you please, 
which have disgraced the present century, though its individual movera 
will be forgotten. But I speak in regard to the Senators who are to sit as judges 
upon the President, one of whom says he represents the great commercial inter- 
ests of Xew York city and State. I will speak with pro^jhecy, that the nomi- 
nation of one President and the impeachment of another will stand side by side 
upon the pages of history, alike odious and infamous in the eyes of the civil- 
ized world. (Tremendous applause.) A few words more, my friends, and I have 
done. (Cries of ' 'Go on, go on. ") "Who is the chief assailant in the House ? (Voice — 
'* Thad. Stevens.") Who is it, with his trembling frame and hoary head, with one 
foot in the grave, that is borne into the Senate to present charges ? He who, 
standing upon the record of his oft-repeated declarations, that the policy of Con- 
gress, of which he had been the chief advocate, was outside, above and beyond 
the Constitution of the country. He who, having taken oath to su^iport the 
Constitution of the country as a member of the American Congress, boldly avows 
that the measures for which he has voted and which he has supported are out- 
side of the Constitution and in \aolation of it. He is the chosen man of the 
House of Representatives to ai)pear before the bar of the Senate and prefer 
charges against the President of the United States for resisting the laws of the 
country ! Will the business men and merchants of this city and country recol- 
lect this ? Our Government has stood the test of peace and war pretty well. 
The President in the hour of trial has at all times been sustained by the people. 
The Congress has had its share of public support. But the fact has always been 
recognized that the executive, the legislative and the judicial departments were 
distinct and independent, and that the safety of the whole country rested upon 
this fact. If the business men of New York and of America do not rise and re- 
monstrate again.st the attemjit of Congress to seize upon the executive office by 
the vote of a mere party majority in it, then farewell to the Constitution and 
farewell to liberty ! (Applause. ) The removal of Mr. Johnson, per se, might 
affect the Government's credit and the Government's peace. I hope it would not. 
The removal of Mr. Lincoln by the hands of an assassin did not affect the credit 
or security or peace of the Government. But that is no reason why assassina- 
tion should be imitated. And although the removal of Mr. Johnson, pc}' se, as An- 
drew Johnson, would not strike upon the public mind with fear and terror, never- 
theless, the fact that a party majority in Congress attempt to remove the Presi- 
dent of the United States ought to make them tremble. Precedents are danger- 
ous things sometimes. The time may come when such a course would be fol- 
lowed with disaster. Men all through this country, rich and poor, are to-day 



80 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

discussing the question liow the national debt is to be paid, whether in gold or 
in currency. Let me tell them, and let me say to the bankers and business men 
of New York, that unless they frown down this first attempt of Congress to eject 
a President without a cause, they had better ask themselves the question what 
security they have got in the great future that it will be paid at all. (Cries of 
" Good," and cheers.) Once destroy the landmarks of your Government ; once cast 
off the gi'eat anchors which have held you finn and fast ; once let it be landerstood 
that one branch of the Government can be overridden and overpowered by an- 
other, if they happen to come in political collision ; once let it be understood 
that the Constitution of the country is not the supreme law of the land, but 
that the will of the party majority in Congress is — let me ask the capitalists of 
New York where is the security for your personal interests or your personal lib- 
erty ? (Apxjlause.) I protest, therefore, against these partisan acts. As a party 
man, as an earnest member of the Democratic party — (applause) — occupying 
some prominence, perhaps, in its councd, and looking at that impeachment in 
Washington as a party question, I would not protest ; I would say let it go on ; 
because I know, as well as I know'anything in the future, the effect that it will pro- 
duce upon the politics of the country, assuming that we are to have free elec- 
tions. But, rising above the i^artisan, as an American citizen, as a member and 
citizen of the great city of New York, as the head of that city which has to-day 
100,000 men who woiild vote to-morrow as one man against this act of Congress. 
I protest against it ; and I warn these people in Congress and throughout the 
country to pursue this act no further. There will be no resistance by force. 
But the greatest force in any civilized age is the force of public opinion ex- 
pressed as the people know how to express it. (Applause.) I only know that 
the President of the United States stands now in Washington as it were alone. 
Cabinet members are forced upon him against his will. Majorities in Congress 
are denouncing him, and threatening impeachment. He stands there, however, 
the representative of the Presidential office, bound to defend its integrity and 
its prerogatives. And the ami of the public is with him, and will sustain him. 
(Loud applause.) My friends, as I told you, I came here not intending to say a 
word ; I have said but little more, perhaps, than I should. I thank you, not for the 
attention you have given to me, but for the manifestation you have made of 
your determination to sustain the Executive of the country in his defence of the 
prerogatives and the power of his office. (Great applause. ) 

In the Connecticut campaign of last spring, which resulted so aus- 
piciously for the Democracy, Mr, Hoffman took a leading and influ- 
ential part. He spoke about six times during the canvass, and always 
with the same force of argument, terseness of statement and logical 
language that characterize all his speeches. His speech at Stamford, 
March 28, was practically the keynote of the campaign of 18C8, 
and is so powerful that we give it in full : 

This large assemblage, gathered at the close of a week's labor and care to 
hear discussed the issues involved in the contest which now occupies the atten- 
tion of the people of Connecticut and the whole country, these upturned, earnest 
faces upon which I now look, the enthusiasm with which you greet the speaker, 
tell me that the people of this State realize to its full extent the importance of 
the struggle in which they are engaged. It is well that it is so, for it is beyond 
all question that this is one of the decisive political contests of the century. 



RE-ELECTIOX AS MAYOR. 81 

occurs in a State not great in its territorial dimensions, but yet gfrcat in its 
wealth, great in its intelligence, great in its earnest educated labor — a State 
which, taking into account its population, is not equalled, and certainly is not 
excelled, by any in the American Union. It comes on in the spring-time of the 
year, just as the snows of winter are melting and the ice giving way to the 
genial influence of the sun. And it comes at a time, too, when the conservative 
mind of the country in every portion of its vast extent feels that a period has 
arrived, when the chilling snows and blasts of war, of passion, of prejudice, of 
hatred, should vanish before a more genial spring-time in the hearts of the 
American people. Three years have passed since the deplorable war in which 
this people were engaged came to a close ; three years have passed since the 
last gun was fired in that teiTible civil strife ; three years have passed since the 
contending hosts laid down their arms and returned to their homes ; and yet the 
people of this country are not at peace. My friends, I come among you not to 
make any appeal to your prejudices or to your passions ; but looking upon you 
as American citizens interested in the welfare of your country, in the future 
prosperity of this land, and knowing that you feel — every man and woman 
among you — that something is needed to make it prosperous and happy different 
from prejudice or jiassion ;" that what it needs is that the people should look 
calmly at the questions which divide and distract them and see if there be not 
some way of escape. Three years, I say, have passed since the war was ended. 
At that time the people were burdened with an enormous debt, their taxation 
was heavy, they were divided into two sections, the North and the South, yet 
they looked forward to a speedy restoration of harmony among them and to a 
rapid diminution of their burdens. And now, I ask, after three years of peace, 
in what condition do we find the country ? The debt is as heavy as- when the 
war closed, the taxation is as burdensome as ever it was, there are just as many 
citizens out of employment, and there is just as much discord and want of har- 
mony as when the cannon of opposing factions were bellowing at each other. 
The party in power seek to impeach and to overthrow the President of the 
United States, and they threaten to assume the power to say who shall have the 
suffrage and who shall not, to tell you people of Connecticut who shall and who 
shall not v#te at your polls. Have we a restored country ? No. Have we a 
united people ? No. Who is responsible for the present state of things ? Who 
were in power during the war, and who have been in power since the war 
ended ? I do not intend to discuss the issues which arose before the war or 
while it lasted. They ended when General Lee met General Grant and surren- 
dered to him, and their soldiers went home in peace. I stand here to discuss 
the issues of the present. WTio have been in power, I ask, since the war closed ? 
The Radical party. It has a majority of two-thirds in Congress. It has control 
over every department of the Government. It has the army. It has the navj'. 
It has had a people ready to sustain them in all they did. They tell us that 
they have not had control of the executive department of the Government ; that 
the President has not been in accord with them in their plans for restoring the 
Union ; that he has been an obstruction to reconstruction ; that he has embar- 
rassed them in every way he could ; that he has prevented the introduction of 
harmony among the people. 

My friends, this is a misrepresentation of the truth. It is true that the Presi- 
dent has not been in harmony with them. It is true that he has opposed their 
revolutionary acts. It is true that he has p\it his veto upon their unconstitu- 
tional bills. But it is not true that he has hindered them from doing what they 



82 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

pleased to do. He has vetoed their bills, but in forty-eight hours thereafter 
they have rejpassed them over his veto. He has not been able to prevent the 
carrying out of any plan or scheme of reconstruction which they have formed. 
I want to start with this proposition, that the responsibility of the present con- 
dition of things rests with them, and them alone, and that they must take it. 
It will not do for a Radical Congress having a two-third majority to attempt to 
saddle the responsibility of the condition of the country upon any one but them- 
selves. What is this thing of reconstruction ? It is the simplest thing in the 
world. There is no difficulty about it. I shall not discuss the numerous acts 
of Congress bearing upon it. It is enough for me to know that the Radical 
party have been the party in jjower, and that it has not yet reconstructed the 
country. The reason is that they do not want to reconstruct it. Their policy 
has not been to reconstruct the Union for the sake of the Union, but to keep it 
unreconstructed for the sake of the Radical party. Their policy has not been to 
get back into the Union those ten States that attempted to go out of it during 
the war, in the same condition and enjoying the same rights as they enjoyed 
before the war, but to get them back in such a way that the so-called repre- 
sentatives of the people in Congress might still retain their ill-gotten power ; 
that Congress might represent, not the people of all the sections from which 
they came, but the people of Massachusetts. Reconstruction is the easiest 
thing in the world. What is it ? Simijly this : that when the war was ended, 
and the question which had been involved in it had by its close been practically 
settled, the section which had attempted to secede should acquiesce in that 
which was required by the common consent of all the people that slavery should 
be at an end, the acts of secession repealed, and the rebel debt be abolished. It 
was all done, and then there was nothing more to be done than for these South- 
ern States to send to Congress such representatives as it would receive. That 
was all. If the Southern people chose to send men there who were not the 
proper persons to send, and men who were not true to the Constitution and laws 
of the country. Congress had the power to refuse them admission. If after 
they obtained admission they showed themselves unfit to be representatives, it 
was in the power of Congress to expel them. There is the whole mystery of 
reconstruction. But this Radical party in Congress were determined from the 
outset that these States should not be allowed to be represented in Congress 
unless they sent representatives who held Radical sentiments, and their policy 
has therefore been to keep these States out of the Union till that pur^Dose was 
accomplished. For this purpose they have received representatives from newly 
created States that had barely population enough to entitle them to representa- 
tion. Not only that, but they have excluded representatives from other States 
upon the ground that they were not loyal to the Constitution of the country. 
Not only that, but they have expelled from the doors of Congress every man 
who was not a Radical. Shall I give you. an illustration ? The other day the 
State of Maryland sent General Thomas to reiDresent them in Congress, and the 
objection brought to exclude him was, that when his son, against his father's 
will and entreaty, went to join the rebel army, the General gave him a hundred 
dollars to keep him from starvation when the time of starvation should come. 
But when Ben Butler came to claim admittance, although he had been a mem- 
ber of the rebel Congress, he was immediately admitted into the church of the 
Radical party. Now I propose to take up these questions and to discuss them 
calmly, plainly, honestly, and to meet the objections made by our Radical oppo- 
nents to the course the Democratic party propose to adopt. We are told, and 



RE-ELECTION AS MAYOR. 83 

this is the ar^ment of the Radical speakers, that the white men of the South 
are rebels, and, therefore, not fit to be admitted to representation. I would like 
to ask a question in Radical arithmetic : if three years of Radical lej^islation has 
kept these men rebels, how many years will it take to make them g-ood loysi 
men ? (Laughter. ) We are told that the Southern people arc rebels yet, and 
that there is, therefore, no hope for the country but to turn those States over 
to the dominion of the negro population. I was amused, in this connection, to 
read in the Xew York Post, a Republican paper, a di.spatch from a Republican 
correspondent in the South, that Georgia and South Carolina could be carried 
by a white Republican majority. If that be true, as our Radical friend says, it 
shows how popular Radical theories must be getting down there. But, my 
friends, I do not come here to discuss this question in the interests of the South- 
ern people particularly. I come to discuss it also in the interest of the Northern 
IJeople. And apart from consideration for the good of the whole people, the 
next thing is for the people of a section of the country to look at how measures 
affect themselves. I want you men of Connecticut, who are to vote shortly upon 
your own representatives in the councils of the country, to consider how this 
Radical policy of reconstruction is affecting you. 

When this war ended, did you not expect that the trade of the country was 
going to revive again ? Thousands of men had been withdra\\-n from the labor 
and the manufactures of the country. A large section of the country was closed 
to our products. This was partially relieved by the demand of the Government 
for the provisions and munitions necessary for carrying on a great war. But the 
war was ended, and even this market was closed. The people looked for an- 
other and better market in the restored South, now that the Government wanted 
their industry and products no longer. Has it been so ? Has any capital been 
invested in those States since they submitted to the arms of the North ? A 
company was formed in this State last winter, called the Planters' Loan Aid 
Association, but it could not get enough to pay for the papers required for its 
due organization. Thus you see that this Radical policy of reconstruction 
keeps from you a market that ought to have been reopened to you long ago. 
Not only this, but unusual and heavy expenses to support the Government are 
put upon you. You have to support a large standing army in time of peace. 
You have the navy to keep up ; you are compelled to sustain a host of tax- 
gatherers and office-holders. The question comes home directly to you : Will 
you defeat and rebiike the policy which causes this state of things to exist ? I 
shall presently discuss more at length this question of taxation and debt, but 
there are other jjoints to be touched ujjon first. I have charged already upon 
this Radical Congi-ess that they have prevented the reconstruction of the Union. 
I have to charge upon them something more than that. I have to charge ui^on 
them that their whole object, if not their avowed, yet their secret object, is to 
subvert the Union and the Constitution, and they are at work earnestly to effect 
this object. They have kept the ten Southern States out of the Union for 
years, and they are now attemjiting unconstitutionally to take upon themselves 
the functions of the executive deijartmeut of the Government. I have a few 
words to say ujion this question of impeachment. I tell you that it is a 
more imi)oi-tant question than j'ou think. Men are deluded by the idea that it 
affects only one man, while in fact it strikes at the very foundations of the 
American Government. I heard the other day a man in the business walks of 
life say, speaking of this question, that if the country could not stand firm 
under the impeachment of the President, then it was not worth preserving. I 

6 



84: JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

tell you that this is a dangerous doctrine. This country stood without a fatal 
shock the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, bvit yet that is not a thing- to be 
imitated. Because the country may stand firm under the political assassination 
•f Andrew Johnson, it does not follow that it should be allowed to proceed with 
indifference. It is a serious business to impeach a President of the United 
States. This is the first time in our history that it has been attempted : I trust 
in God it may be the last. I hope, at any rate, that if it ever occurs again 
there will be some shadow of a pretext for it. I hope it will never occur again 
upon the dictation of a party majority in Congress, and when the men of the 
party which impeaches stand and say in private circles that it is wrong. There 
are those who say that it is not necessary to discuss this question of impeach- 
ment, but I feel that I would not be doing my duty to my country or this audience 
if I failed to discuss it. (Applause. ) What does this mean, that the President of 
the United States is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors ? Vv'hat is the 
crime for which this extraordinary, this unprecedented course is taken ? It is 
simply that he issued an order to remove from office Edwin M. Stanton. Is it a 
high crime and misdemeanor to turn a Radical out of office ? If so, Heaven 
have mercy upon the citizens of this country next Fall ; for in my opinion there 
will be a general turning out of Radical members of both Houses of Congress. 
A crime to turn Edwin M. Stanton out of office ! Do you suppose that it would 
have been a crime in the eyes of the Radical members of Congress to turn out 
of office Seward, or any member of the President's Cabinet except Stanton ? I 
think it would be looked upon by most of them rather as a political virtue than 
as a political crime. In what respect is it a crime ? What is the law ? The 
law simply is, that members of the President's Cabinet shall hold office during 
the term of office of the President that appointed them. And Edwin M. Stan- 
ton was appointed, not by Andrew Johnson, but by Abraham Lincoln. But, say 
these men, Johnson knew just what Congress meant when they passed the 
Tenure -of -Office Act, that they meant it to apply to those appointed by the 
latter as well as those appointed by the former — making their intention the rule 
of conduct instead of their expressed will. I tell you, friends, it is time to at- 
tempt to convict the President of high crimes and misdemeanors when it is 
pretended that he has tried to injure the interests of the American people. 
What did General Sherman say, in a letter respecting the proposed removal of 
Stanton from office ? He says that he offered to go with General Grant to 
Stanton and advise him to resign for the good of the country ; if he would not do 
so, then it would be time to contrive ulterior measures. Yet the Radical asso- 
ciates of Sherman say that it was contrary to the interests of the country to re- 
move Stanton, and make a test case to try the constitutionality of their act 
for the holding of offices. And now it is said that they are going to nominate 
General Grant as the Radical candidate for the Presidency. Yet we call your 
attention to the fact that Grant, the nominee of the Radical party, was going 
with Sherman, had he not been prevented, to advise Stanton to resign office for 
the good of the country, and that the same Radical party are impeaching the 
President for attempting to remove him for the g'ood of the country. 

What, my friends, does this impeachment business mean V It means simply 
this, and you had better bear it in mind : that though by the Constitution of the 
country the three departments of the Government, the legislative, the execu- 
tive, and the judicial, are made independent of each other, yet a Radical 
majority in Congress which holds its life by that Constitution have assumed the 
power to turn out the President, who holds his position by the same authority 



RE-ELECTION AS .MAYOR. 85 

as they do, upon any pretext of party necessity or other, and to name the man 
who shall take his place. Are you willing to have that precedent established ? 
But what harm will it do, you ask, to remove Andrew Johnson ? What hai-m ? 
A^Taat harm can come from overthrowing any great principle ? ^Vhat harm is it 
to go out to sea without a compass or a chart V What harm is it to ignore the 
very first) principles of our Government ? Answer these cpiestions and I will tell 
you what harm it is to impeach and remove Andrew Johnson without good 
cause. I ask the business men of this town, I care not whether they be rich or 
poor, who have money and property invested in the countrv-, what may not come 
from allowing Mr. Wade to be placed in the Presidential chair, — Mr. Wade, who 
made that proposition, which none but a. demagogue could make, that property 
should be divided among the people, without reference to those who owTied or 
earned it ? This is a fact, and yet men are perfectly indifferent whether Mr. 
Johnson is deposed or not, and Mr. Wade placed in the Presidential chair. They 
talk about the national debt ; how important it is to make provision for its pay- 
ment, and to protect the honor and credit of the country, and yet they stand 
indifferent to the violation of the Constitution, and to the probable elevation to 
the Presidency of a man who dared to advocate the doctrine that property should 
be divided without reference to the men who make it and o^vn it. But these 
Radicals do not stop there, but strike next at the Supreme Court of the coun- 
try. What care I for that ? says some one ; I never have any cases there. It is 
not in my sphere of life. No questions arise in my business that require its 
action. And men come among you and teU you that it is all well enough to 
declaim about the Supreme Court, but it is only talk for a purjiose. And yet 
there is not a man in the State of Connecticut who does not know that if his 
neighbor wrongs him in person or property his only remedy is in the laws and in 
the courts which administer them, and that if Congress has the right to strike 
down the law when it pleases he must be at the mercy of his political opponent. 
How about the matter of the Supreme Court ? Under a recent act of Congress, 
a man having a case involving two dollars may have it taken before the Supreme 
Court, while matters of life and death are given over to a military organization 
under the control of a partisan government. I charge upon the Radicals that 
they dare not submit their acts to the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
land, constituted under its Constitution. Strike down the courts and where are 
you ? At the mercy of the Radical party ? Yes, just now. But that is not the 
whole. Things may change, and another party be in the ascendant. But which- 
ever is in power, no man's interests are secure if all power rests only in Congress. 
Look at these men in Congress at the present time ; what are they doing ? Tak- 
ing action to convict the President of violation of the l.ivv'. And who is the chief 
impeacher ? Thaddeus Stevens, who boldly declares that impeachment is to be 
decided beyond the Constitution and above it, and that Congress may act aside 
from it. If the Supreme Court stays them in their course, they will not hesitate 
to suppress that bulwark of American libei-ty and rights. Consider what this 
would be if done in your owti State. You have a constitution ; you have three 
branches in your government — the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. 
The wisdom of j'our fathers told you that this was necessary. Suppose that the 
Legislature of Connecticut should attempt to abolish one or other branch of 
the State government ; what would the people of the State say to that ? They 
would say to its members, You have been false to the Constitution of the State ; 
you deserve to be hurled from power, and you .shall be. (Cheers. ) There are 
wuthin this room men of labor and men of wealth, but there is no division 



86 JOHN T. HOFFAIAK 

between you ou questions of interest ; your interest is alike in preserving the 
Government as your forefathers left it to you. If the Constitution does not 
provide for new emergencies which arise, there is a way provided in itself for 
its alteration and amendment. But you are not safe in the hands of people who 
attempt to act indeijendently of the executive and judicial jjarts of the Govern- 
ment. But further, my friends, the Radicals have not stopped at keeping out 
of the Union ten States, with striking down the President or attempting to do 
it, and with striking do'WTi the Supreme Court ; but there is another jjolicy which 
they avow, and which they are attempting to carry into execution. 

This policy is what they call an equality of races, equality of the white and 
black races of this country. They haye virtually turned the South over to the 
control of the negro population there. They have disfranchised the great mass 
of the white intelligence of the South, and left it \drtually in the hands of the 
blacks. Perhaps I am wrong to say virtually under the control of the blacks, 
for the blacks are under the comi>lete control of the Freedmen's Bureau 
which has been established there, and is maintained at public exjiense and 
supported by the taxes of the North. Let us look at this question of negro suf- 
frage. You have not chosen it here in Connecticut. You voted it down when 
it was presented to you directly, and you virtually voted it down again in your 
last election. The question was of very little consequence comparatively in this 
State, for your negro population is very small. Yet you opposed it, and the 
white masses of the North generally rejected it. But notwithstanding, Congress 
saddles ic upon the Southern States, where there are large negro populations, and 
where it is of great consequence, and where the people are strongly opposed to 
it. It seems scarcely worth while to argue the question of negro equality and 
fitness for the suffrage, for no one believes in it. And yet within two years the 
great body of the Republican party have changed from an attitude of hostility 
to it to one of the very opposite descriiition. Two years ago, when I iiredicted 
that if the Democratic party did not arouse, the South would be placed under a 
negro domination and the President be impeached, I was laughed at. To-day 
both have come to pass. How about this equality of races ? Have you ever 
seen it in Connecticut ? Have you ever seen it anywhere ? Does it exist in the 
City of Washington ? Look at those extreme Radical men who talk about the 
rights of the negro, and the ability of the negro. Do you find them employing 
them as clerks or otherwise in any of the departments ? Go with me to that 
city, and where wall you find them except on the street-crossings, at boot-black 
stands, or in the galleries of Congress. The great Thaddeus Stevens himself has 
no negro in his employ except the man who brushes his clothes or blacks his 
boots. A gentleman told me lately that he saw in the South a jury of six white 
men and six black men sitting side by side, and the judge informed him that not 
one of the latter could either read or write. Is that the way to reconstruct the 
South ? Is that the way to make it great and prosperous ? Is that the 
way to put it in a condition to help pay the debt of the country ? Is 
that the way to help the Southern people ? Is that the way to make 
them good Union-loving, loyal men ? My friends, you would not tolerate 
it for an instant in the State of Connecticut. Can you expect that such a 
course will make a happy, contented, united people anywhere '? But you are 
told that these people have been freed from slavery and been made citizens, and 
must have all the rights and protection accorded to citizens. I say so too. Let 
us do all in our power to better their condition. But if we are not more suc- 
cessful in doing so than we have been in the Northern States for the last half 



RE-ELECTION AS MAYOR. 87 

century, may God heave mercy upon the country which is nilcd l)y them. 
(Applause.) I would go as far as any man in helping to elevate their condition, 
as far as that is possible, but when it comes to giving them the power to govern 
whole States I do not consent. What do they know about governing States ? 
'• Oh," said a Radical with whom I conversed on this subject, ''they are just as 
fit as the Irish or Germans." If they spoke honestly they would tell you that 
their veiy object in giving the negroes the right of suffrage was to offset the vote 
of the Irish and the Gemian citizens. They tell you that the negroes are just 
as intelligent as the poor whites of the South. That may be ; but that is 
no reason why the government of the South should be given up to the poor 
whites and the negroes combined. These people, 'as I have said, are governed 
by the Freedmen's Bureau. It feeds and clothes them, and controls them. That 
Bureau is a creature of the Radical Congress at Washington, which thus fur- 
nishes employment to Radical emissaries and pays them out of the treasury of 
the country to rule the South in the interest of the party. The money for all 
this feeding and clothing and supporting of the Bureau comes out of the people 
of the iS'orth. Their position is this : that if the negroes down South are fit to 
vote, and assume all the rights of American citizens, they are fit to take care of 
themselves and pay their portion of the general expenses. (Applause.) But the 
question is hardly worth argument. There is not a Radical who would say 
upon his oath that the negroes are fit to have the control of any government in 
their hands. But they will say in confidence to you that the Radical party have 
got the control of them, and so they control the Soufii. How do they control 
them ? By sending down to the South a set of people who could hardly earn 
for themselves a decent living in the North, who hope eventually to be elected 
to represent it, and then the party will claim that as an expression of the senti- 
ment of the South. This thing must be stopped, and you people of Connecticut 
must stop it. I say you people of Connecticut, for I tell you that if in this 
spring election in Connecticut the voice of the people is in favor of the Radical 
policy, it may be that not only in substance your Government may be destroyed, but 
you will have saddled upon you this very burden which now the South labors under. 
Last winter the Legislature in this State, at the recommendation of Governor 
English, abolished the poll-tax, so that every man in it could vote. Next year 
Congress may say that no man shall vote in the State unless he is worth a hun- 
dred thousand dollars, or, going further, that you shall not vote unless you are 
in accord with their political policy. These men say that they represent a ma- 
jority of the people, and, therefore, their voice is the voice of the people. I say 
they do not represent a majority of the people. Take the State of New York, 
for instance. Last year it gave fifty thousand Democratic majority (cheers), and 
yet it is represented by two Radical Senators and by a large majority of Radical 
Congi-essmen. Take the State of California. Last year it gave a Democratic 
majority in its Legi.slature, and yet to-day it is represented by Radicals. Ohio 
last year elected a Democratic Senator who takes his seat in 1869, and yet to- 
day it is represented by two Radicals, and in the Assembly by a large majority 
of Radicals. The same is the case in Pennsylvania. The result of the elections 
in the North so far is that a considerable majority of the votes cast were Demo- 
cratic, and yet two-thirds of the Congress is Radical ; and these men overthrow 
your forms of government under the pretence that they represent a majorit}' of 
the people. There never was a more false and monstrous proposition jjut forth. 
No argument is brought before the people morepoiiular biitmore deceptive than 
this, that the will of a majority of the people is the law of the land, the Consti- 



88 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

tution to the contrary uotwithstauding. I leave the subject to say a few words 
on the present condition of the North. Is it prosperous ? It is not ; business is 
decreasing ; commerce is shrinking-. Go among your manufacturers. Some of 
them are doing work, biit are there not thousands in Connecticut out of employ- 
ment ? In the great city of New York you will see more clerks gazing oiit of 
the windows than customers going into the shops. There are thousands willing 
to work, anxious to work, longing to work, but they cannot get work. There is 
no trade with the South, and the demand in the West is limited. Why V Be- 
cause there is no confidence among the peoj^le about their future. Look at the 
South. Have you heard of any Northern manufacturer opening an account with 
any of the freedmen of the South, or with any of the whites ? Why does not 
capital go there ? Because there is no security for it. The country is under 
military or negro domination. What Northern man will send his capital or his 
goods there ? And things are getting worse and will get worse, and taxes become 
more oppressive. Congress has passed a law taking ofE the internal revenue tax. 
But if revenue is not collected from manufactures it must be from something 
else. The Government must have a revenue in some shape or other. There is 
no dodging this except by repudiating the debt. The fact is, tie movement is 
made only to influence the election in Connecticut, but I do not think it will do 
it. (Applause. ) Everj'thing is taxed except Government securities ; and while 
thousands may be invested in them and be free from taxation, it is wrung out of 
the labor of the poor man. Everything you eat, drink, wear, read — everything 
you use or own is taxed. You are taxed from the time you are bom till you die. 
I do not object to taxation if it is used for the good of the country. When it is 
wrung out of one section of the country merely to keep another in subjection to 
negroes I do object to it. (Applause.) I object when it is taken from the white 
industrious men of the North to support the blacks and their lazy rulers in the 
South. (Applause. ) I object to it when it is used to keep a Radical majority in 
power against the will of the people. I object to it when it is used by Radical 
electioneering agents to corrupt the electors. When it comes to honest, fair tax- 
ation for legitimate purjjoses, as, for instance, to pay off the national debt, 
palsied be my tongue before I utter a word against it. (Applause.) That 
national debt is now .$2,7(X),000,000, two-thirds of that of Great- Britain. 
We have been six years in making ours ; they two hundred years in making 
theirs. Why in God's na^me are ten States kept out of the Union ? Was not 
this immense debt incurred to keep them from going out ? 

Why are our national expenses — I say nothing of our local expenses — so large ? 
In 1861, a tim.e of peace, the cost of the army was $23,000,000. In 1868, also a 
time of peace, it is $83,000,0C0. In 1861 the navy cost $12,000,000 ; now it costs 
$31,000,000. What is it all for? We are not at war with any foreign power. 
We have no war among ourselves. It is done to maintain the sujiremacy of a 
party, and to prevent that glorious object, the jsreservation of the Union, and 
the authority of the Constitution, for which so many of our i^eople sacrificed 
their lives. The civil expenses of the Government in 1867 were $170,(X)0,000 
more than in 1861. Do you realize the magnitude of these figures ? Can you 
grasp them ? We used to be alanned at a debt of $70,000,0(X) ; now our civil 
expenses are increased to $170,000,000 in six years. What is the condition of 
our securities ? The country is a great country. It is mighty in its agricultui'al 
and in its mineral resources, and in an energetic people ; yet go into any of the 
European markets, and you will find United States bonds, paying six per cent, 
interest in gold, selling for 71 cents, while British bonds, bearing but three per 



HIS SECOND NOMINATION FOR aOVERNOR. 8 

cent, interest, sell for 94 cents to 93 cents. A Canadian bond paj's a premium 
of four per cent. ; a New Zealand bond is worth 109 i ; a Massachusetts bond 
87, while the bonds of the United States are only 72. In the United States gold 
is at a ijreminm of 40 per cent. ; in Russia it is only 14, and in Austria 23. Is 
this a proper condition of things ? Who is responsible ? It is not the largeness 
of the debt ; it is not that the people will not pay their taxes cheerfully ; it is 
not that the resources of the country are not ample ; but the people of the Old 
World, looking calmly on at us, see that we have a divided country, and that its 
affairs are in the hands of a partisan government bent upon power and gain, 
instead of being in the hands of wise statesmen and honest patriots. During 
the war military necessity was the excuse for everything ; now it is a party 
necessity. Military necessity is dangerous enough, but party necessity is more 
dangerous still. Your duty in Connecticut is to declare in this election upon 
the side of a sound conservatism ; to administer a rebuke to the party in power. 
That party will attemijt to buy votes, since they cannot convince by argument. 
Is there a man within the sound of my voice, however poor he may be, that will * 
sell his birth-right— who values the land of his nativity or his adoption so little 
as to sell his vote ? The man who, in a crisis like this in the nation, would sell 
his vote would sell his soul. It is a poor policy to sacrifice principle for any 
mere personal advantage. If any man is found selling his vote, let him have the 
finger of scorn pointed at him forever, and go marked to his grave. In conclu- 
sion, let me say that I look for great and glorious things in Connecticut. There 
is no reason why you should not have them. Look at the result of the election 
last year ; State after State declaring for the Democratic jjolicy and against the 
Radical. Will you be backward now ? Shall it be said that this town, which 
never failed before to give a Democratic majority, will fail now ? I believe it 
will not ; I trust it will not ; I appeal to you to see that it does not. I appeal 
to you in the name of our whole country to see that Connecticut stands firm by 
the Union and the Constitution. You men of Connecticut are- thrown to the 
front of the battle ; see to it that your State is not false to the pledges of last 
spring, and that James G. English, that pure, upright, earnest, patriotic man, is 
not simply elected, but has a majority at least double of that you gave him last 
year. (Cheers.) Do that, and one thing you wUl accomplish, if no other: there 
will be no impeachment of the President, no overthrowing the Sujireme Court, 
no forced negro suffrage ; but a feeling of joy and relief will spring up among 
loj'al men everywhere that here in the East the sun of Conservatism is rising, and 
an assurance that it will continue to rise until in midday splendor it shines down 
upon a whole people redeemed and saved from Radical misnile and Radical 
ruin. 



CHAPTEU IX, 

HIS SECOND NOMINATION FOR GOVKRNOR. 

In the early part of the present year, when the politicians and the 
press throughout the country were speculating in regard to the 
probable nominees of the National Ueniocratic Convention, John T. 



90 JOHN T. HOFFMAK 

Hoffman's name was among the foremost of those mentioned for the 
office of Vice-President. The circumstances connected with liis official 
career in this city, his canvass of the State as a candidate for Governor 
in 1866, and the remarkable run wliicb he made for Mayor last year, 
had made his name familiar to the Democracy of the country. The 
public judged, and wisely too, that a man who exhibited such strength 
and popularity among his people at home, must possess more than 
ordinary ability and greater elements of popularity than most men. 

The Democratic press in all sections pointed to him as one of the 
best men that could be placed upon the national ticket for Vice- 
President in the event of the nominee for President coming from the 
West. During the time that the Chase " movement," as it was called, 
was talked about, the names of Chase and Hoffman were invaiiably 
mentioned together. This was so general that it was charged that 
the Chase " movement " meant the nomination of Mr. Hoffman as 
the second on the ticket, and that this was the secret of the Chase 
talk. 

This was not the case ; at least if it was, Mr. Hoffman himself had 
no connection with it. He declared from the outset that he did not 
desire the nomination for Vice-President, and could not accept it if 
tendered him. His ambition was to be Governor. It was towards 
Albany instead of Washington that his eyes were turned. 

When the National Convention met, several efforts were made to 
make a combination with Hoffman's friends that would secure his 
nomination for Vice-President, with a prominent candidate in the 
West for President. All overtures of this kind were, however, re- 
jected. It is not at all improbable, however, that if Senator Hendricks 
had received the nomination for President, Mr. Ploffman would have 
been compelled to yield, and to accept the second place on the 
ticket. 

That he was looked upon as one of the most prominent men in the 
party on this occasion is manifested by the fact that, in the long 
struggle in the Convention to nominate a candidate, and numerous 
ballots without any result, Mr. Hoffman received the vote of one of 
the Western delegations on three or four ballots for President. 

The moment that the National Convention adjourned, a brisk 
canvass sprung up in regard to the nomination for Governor. Several 
candidates were named as the preference of the Democracy in different 
parts of the State. But it was early seen that the question rested 
between Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Murphy of Brooklyn. The De- 
mocracy of the latter city urged the nomination of Senator Murphy 
with great earnestness, and his friends appointed a committee of 
twenty to visit different sections of the State and urge his claims upon 
the party. In addition to this, Senator Murphy had for several years 



niS SECOND NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR. 91 

been a member of the State Senate, and there fotioht the battles of 
the Deniocracy wlien there was not a handful of Democrats around 
the circle to assist him. He had in his career there won hosts of 
friends, and made the accjuaintance of nearly all the leading politi- 
cians of the State. He had attached most of these men to him, and 
they now took up his cause and labored for his nomination. 

As the campaign progressed, and the heated term drove many of our 
public men, as well as fashionable people, to the watering-places, both 
Mr. Hoffman and ]\Ir. Murpliy found their way to Saratoga. The 
large number of politicians from different sections of tlie State who 
gathered there soon commenced an active canvass of the claims and 
merits of the two men. It was a noticeable fact that a large majority 
of the politicians at Saratoga were for Mr. Murphy. This was so 
manifest, that his nomination over that of Mr. Hoffman was by those 
Avlio looked at it from that stand-point considered a foregone con- 
clusion. Even Mr. Murphy, relying upon the promises of those men 
who had always controlled their districts in the election of delegates, 
believed his own domination certain. 

All these miscalculated the feeling of the people. The campaign 
of 1866 gave Mr. Hoffman an introduction to the jaeople of the State. 
"When he was nominated that year for Governor they knew but little 
about him, except by reputation. His marked deeds in the metropolis 
were nearly all performed during the war, when the people throughout 
the State had their attention turned elsewhere. During tliat canvass he 
visited every important point in the State, and addressed a large num- 
ber of meetings. This gave him an introduction to the ])eople, and a 
reputation outside of the city. From that time he was recognized as 
something more than a local politician, and as belonging to the Democ- 
racy of the State as well as Tammany; and looked upon as one of 
the leaders of the Democracy of the Commonwealth. From that 
time they took an interest in all that he did, and Avatched all his 
movements. 

Asiile from all of these facts, there was a general impression 
that the vote of his opponent in 1866 was in some way counted 
larger than it really Avas. The mysterious way in Avhich the re- 
turns from all the strong Republican localities were held back until 
the result in all the Democratic strongholds was known gave color to 
this supposition. There was, also, that feeling which is peculiar to the 
Democratic party, that when a man has made a good fight and car- 
ried their standard in its hour of adversity, to reward him Avhen more 
prosperous seasons arrive. The second race of !Mr. Hoffman for 
Mayor in New York had also aided in drawing the people through- 
out the State to his support. 

When the primary elections were called to elect delegates to the 



92 JOHN T. HOFFMAN. 

State Convention, a majority of those men who have controlled the 
Conventions of the jaarty for several years past were in favor of the 
nomination of Henry C. Murphy. They attended the local conven- 
tion with the view of either getting themselves elected delegates, or 
to send men who would vote for Senator Muri)hy. But when they 
came to meet the people at the primary election they found that they 
were in earnest for Mr. Hoffman, and that tliey demanded his nomina- 
tion. The result was that young men and new men were sent to the 
State Convention. Those who had been accustomed to attend for years, 
and who had been considered invincible in their own party at home, 
were unable to get elected delegates wherever they had announced them- 
selves for Murphy. Several of these men who had been for years 
looked up to by their party at home, whose counsels had always 
been followed and advice taken, by the rank and file, as law and gos- 
])el, were set aside in this movement, so earnest were the masses of 
the party in this one direction. 

All this arose from no dislike of Senatoi' Murphy or the men who 
were urging his nomination. They had their hearts set upon the 
nomination of Mr. Hoffman, and were determined that there should 
be no failure. Their earnestness and action in this respect were very 
much like the feeling which actuated the rank and file of the Democ- 
racy in the contest which took place between the renomination of 
Wm. C. Bouck and that of Silas Wriglit. Then the masses of the 
party set aside many of the leaders, because they were pledged to 
and supported Mr. Bouck, and sent new and young men to the Con- 
vention, pledged and instructed for Silas Wright. Thus it Avas in 
this contest between Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Mui-phy. On almost any 
other occasion they would have been delighted to follow their old 
leaders in support of Senator Murphy, but as they then viewed mat- 
ters they would not listen to them. 

When the Convention assembled it became apparent to everybody 
there that the tide was one way, that the masses of the i)arty had 
made their work sm*e, and that, leaving New York city out of the 
question, it would be impossible to prevent the nomination of Mr. 
Hoffman. Several of the old politicians of the party zealously labored 
to get up a combination on some new man, and to have the names of 
Hoffman and Murphy both dropped. But this move made no head- 
way. Outside of the election of the delegates from the city of New 
York and Brooklyn, the result of this Convention was less the work 
of management and intrigue, and the nomination of Hoffman more 
directly attributable to the masses of the party, than any nomination 
that has taken place in this State for 3-ears. 

Senator Murphy becoming convinced, after looking over the field, 
that there was no chance, withdrew his name from the canvass, and 



AS A MA?T AXD ORATOR. 93 

left Mr, Hoffman witliout a competitor when the noniinations wore 
reached in the Convention. His name was presented to tlie Conven- 
tion by Geo. W. Miller, of Rochester, and seconded by A. Oakey 
Hall, of New York. The former declared, in presenting the name of 
Hoffman, that the people of Western New York demanded his nomi- 
nation; while Mr. Hall, in seconding it, predicted tliat he would 
receive 90,000 majority in New York city. His nomination was then 
made by acclamation. He has accepted, and already commenced a 
tour of the State, addressing the 2:»eople at all the principal points. 

There is one peculiarity in all Mr. Huffman's public career, and 
that is, the devotion of the German element of our population to him. 
This is seen at all their political gatherings, and without distinction 
of party predilection among them. 



CHAPTEE X. 

JOHN T. HOFFMAN AS A MAN AND ORATOK. 

The public and private character of John T. Hoffman is unassail- 
able. His bitterest enemies have never dared to impugn his private 
character; none have ever questioned his public acts, except those 
who have failed to use him to aid their corrupt schemes. The sup- 
port of the newspaper which has assailed him the most was promised 
him by an agent, who pretended that he had authority to speak, 
if he would favor a scheme which the owner of that joinnal desired, 
and the threat of its opposition made if he refused. All this had no 
effect upon Mr. Hoffman. He acted on that question, ns on all others, 
in accordance with what lie conscientiously believed to be the inter- 
ests of the people, and let the consequences take care of themselves. 
This has, in fact, always been his guide in official life : to perform his 
duty conscientiously, administer the trusts placed in his hands in a 
manner that would best subserve the interests of the peoi)le, without 
stopping to consider whether it will affect his popularity or not. 

He is a man of 8imi>le tastes and temperate living ; a cultured 
Christian gentleman, of domestic habits, spending most of his leisure 
hours with his family. 

There is an impression existing to a great extent that he is aristo- 
cratic, in the sense which is best expressed in the homely phrase, " stuck 
up." But this is far from the case. He is a man, in many respects, 



94 JOHN T. HOFFMAX. 

reserved ; liis poor health in early life necessarily led liim into dif- 
ferent habits and created different tastes from those which characterize 
most of our public men of the day. That apparent haughtiness in his 
manner all disappears upon acquaintance, and the man who seemed 
aristocratic at first sight becomes genial, warm, and companionable. 

He is becoming one of the most popular speakers of the day. His 
style is different from that of Seymour, Pendleton, Church, and many 
other prominent public speakers of the times. It is, however, fully as 
attractive as either, except it may be that of Seymour. His speeches 
are extemporaneous, neither written out beforehand nor committed 
to memory. 

His arguments are always cogent and to the point, his illustrations 
instructive, his Lmguage faultless, his words impressive, while his per- 
orations have an inspiriting effect upon the audience. 

His independent and patriotic course as Recorder of this city, the 
unflinching manner in which he dealt out justice to all classes of 
offenders against the law, the vigilance with whicli he has guarded the 
public interests, and the promptitude with which he has vetoed all 
corrupt or questionable projects since he has been jNIayor, furnish 
unmistakable evidence of his fitness for the position for which he is 
now a candidate. It further proves that the affairs of the State can 
be safely placed in his hands. 



ALLEN C. BEACH. 



HIS BOYHOOD STUUGGLES. 

The Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor, Allex C. Beach, 
is in every respect a self-made man, and comes from Xew England 
stock. His grandfather was a native of Connecticut and his grand- 
mother of Massachusetts. His father was born in Montgomery 
county, while his mother is a native of Herkimer county of this 
State. 

The father of Mr. Beach has long been well known to the people 
in Montgomery, Herkimer, and Madison counties, where he has for 
over thirty years been stationed as minister of the gospel. He is a 
clergyman in the Baptist Church, and has spent his life preaching in 
the small towns in those counties mentioned, and is now, at an ad- 
vanced ay,t;, residing at Hamilton, Madison county. 

The calling of a mirdster in the rural towns is not generally lucra- 
tive. Those who accept that mission in the country have found it 
hard work and poor pay. Rev. Mr. Beach's experience during the 
early portion of his ministerial life was no exception to this rule. He 
was stationed at Fairfield, Herkimer county, when the subject of this 
biography was born. 

Allen C. Beach was born on the 9th day of October, 1825. He re- 
ceived such education as the limited means of his father and a village 
school at that time furnished, until he reached the age of twelve 
years; at that age he left home and commenced to take care of himself. 
This was early to leave the parental roof, and commence to fight 
the battles of life. But young Beach, seeing the necessity, had the 
courage and fortitude even at that age to meet it. He first obtained 
work on a farm, where he remained for three years. During this 
time his leisure hours were spent in studying, and he was often known 
to go a great distance after the close of his day's work to obtain 
books to read and study — thus surmounting difficulties to obtain 



96 ALLEN C. BEACH. 

knowledge and better his condition, such us but few yonths of this 
day would think of meeting. 

In tins manner he fitted himself for teaching school, and at the end 
of three years' service on the form, before he was sixteen years old, 
he commenced teaching in a district school during the winter months. 
His thirst for knowledge grew with his years, and liis determination 
to obt lin a thorough education now became the ambition of his life. 
With the money that he earned teaching during the winter months, 
he clothed himself and paid his way at an academy during the sum- 
mer. His first summer, affeer he had decided upon this course, was 
spent at the Jordan Academy, Onondaga county. As soon as the 
time arrived for the commencement of the winter schools he returned 
to his task, spending the winter in teaching and studying, making in 
this manner greater progress than most youths do whose parents are 
able to keep them constantly at school. 

Several years were spent by Mr. Beach in this way, alternating 
between teaching and studying. After the second year he attended, 
during the summer months, the academy at Mexico, Oswego county, 
and there fitted himself for college. By practising economy and care- 
fully husbanding his earnings, he had managed, when he reached the 
age of twenty-one, to save enough to enable him to enter college. 

It may be considered a remarkable coincidence that Mr. Beach 
entered Union College in 1846, the same year and just about the same 
time that John T. Hoffman received his diploma as a graduate in the 
same college ; the nominee for Governor passing out of one door 
with his diploma, while the candidate on the same ticket for Lieu- 
tenant-Governor was entering another door to commence the struggle 
for the same prize. 

The same habits of industry and hard study which had character- 
ized Mr. Beach while preparing himself for college, were continued 
during his term there. As miglit be expected, he made rapid pro- 
gress, and in 1848 he graduated, receiving among the highest honors 
of his class. 

He found by this time that his means were exhausted and his 
savings all vanished. But lie had the consolation of knowing that they 
liad been wisely spent and that he had been benefited by it. But he 
was compelled to immediately obtain a position where he could again 
replenish his purse. 

On leaving college he obtained a situation as one of the assistants 
in tlie Watertown Academy. While discharging the duties of that 
position, he commenced studying law with the late Joshua Moore, 
one of the leading barristers of that section of the State. He pursued 
these studies, alternating between teaching and reading law, for some 
four years, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. At the death of 



HIS SUCCESS IN LIFE. 97 

Mr. Moore lie formed a partner.sliip with Levi If. Brown, and has 
been associated with him ever since 1854, The firm of Brown & 
Beach has, for a number of yeai's, stood foremost among the legal 
firms in Northern New York, and they are considered the leading- 
men at the bar in Jefferson county. 

About one year after he was admitted to tlie bar, or in 1853, 
Mr. Beach married the daughter of Norris M. Woodruif, of Water- 
town, one of the principal families in that section. This union was 
not of long duration; in 1856 the wife was stricken down with 
disense and died. Mr. Beach remained a widower until 1862, 
when he was again married, this time to Mrs. Pickering, of Saratoga 
Springs. 

Mr. Beach Avas a delegate to the National Convention at Charleston 
in 1860, and was an ardent supporter of Stephen A. Douglas, both at 
the Charleston and Baltimore meetings of that Convention. He has 
been Chairman of the Democratic County Committee on several 
occasions, and in this capacity has exhibited great organizing abil- 
ity. 

In 1863 he was nominated by the Democracy of his county for 
County Judge. Pie ran ahead of his ticket, but tlie county was then 
some three thousand Republican — too much to overcome. He was last 
year nominated as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and 
came within four hundred votes of carrying his county, which was at 
the previous election some 2,800 Repvdalican, showing that he possesses 
the elements of popularity, and is strong where he is well known. 

The Democracy of Jeflerson county have frequently sent him as 
a delegate to the State Convention, where he has taken an active 
part. He was also a delegate to the National Convention which 
met in New York on the 4th of July last. 

He has accumulated a moderate competency in the practice of his 
professicm, is a man of fine legal attainments, a ripe scholar, a man of 
strict integrity, and, as Ave have already shown, belongs to that class 
of men who have worked their way upward in spite of adverse cir- 
cumstances. 

He has at all times thoroughly identified himself with the local in- 
terests of his town, and more especially has he taken a deep interest 
in educational matters, and is at the present time President of the 
Board of Education of Watertown. 

He is also a man of fine i)ersonal appearance — large frame, manly 
form, light complexion, dark hair and eyes, smoothly shaven except 
a moustache, is stoutly built, being six feet high and weighing two 
hundred and twenty-five pounds. 

In 1863, during the period vv'hen there was so much excitement 
over the arrest of individuals, and their incarceration in pri.'^ons with- 



98 ALLEN C. BEACH. 

out trial, Mr. Beach, at tlie request of many of the leading citizens, 
delivered a speech at Rutland, Jeiferson county, whicli has been 
since largely quoted from, and pronounced by some of the ablest 
jurists in the State a masterly document. The following are some 
of the points of this speech : 

The privileg-e of the writ of habeas cor^jus is not appreciated or understood in 
the United States as it is in England, for the reason that we have never had, 
until within the last three years, any serious contest for that right. It has been 
as free, within certain well-defined legal restrictions, as air, and it is difficult for 
the people to believe, without experience, that they are to be or can be arbitra- 
rily and Ulegally deprived of the one any more than the other. 

DEFINITION AND EXPLANATION OP HABEAS CORPUS. 

" Habeas corpus " are two Latin words, meaning " have the body," and the 
writ happens to have that name from the circumstance that formerly in England 
all writs were written in Latin and received the name of the first or most promi- 
nent words in them. 

You are a law-abiding citizen, but without any process of law you are arrested 
and imprisoned. What instrumentality does the law provide for your release 
from such imprisonment ? Only the habeas corpus. 

Upon a petition stating the facts entitling you to it, you or your friends or 
agent applies to a judge or court of record for a writ of habeas corpus ; the 
court or judge issues the writ, directed to the person detaining you, and com- 
manding him to " have the body " of the person restrained in his liberty before 
such judge or court at the time named in the writ. Thus you are brought up 
before the judge, and the cause of your detention is investigated. If you are 
legally held you cannot be discharged, but must be remanded into custody. If 
illegally held you must be discharged, and thus is your right to personal liberty 
maintained. None but the innocent can be released by it. Hence it is the writ 
for the protection and security of the innocent. It is the great writ of free- 
dom. 

The Anglo-Saxon is jealous of any encroachment upon his liberty. He spurns 
the manacles of slavery, and resists every attempt of power to subject him to 
illegal restraint. Hence we find an almost continual struggle between the mon- 
archs and the people of England for hundreds of years — on the one hand to 
maintain, and on the other to overthrow the power of arresting and imprisoning the 
citizens at will. Even after the Barons of England had wrested from King John 
" Magna Charta,''' in the year 1215, he as well as subseqiient kings of England 
attempted to nullify its benefits and deny them to the people. The contest 
between the executive and the people was renewed at various times, until 
finally the people triumphed, and for the last two hundred years it has been the 
settled and agreed law of England that every Englishman restrained of his 
liberty .shall have the privilege of a writ of habeas coipus, and that the same 
shall in no case be suspended by the executive. An entry on the Journal of the 
House of Commons, made on the 3d day of April, 1028, reads as foUows : " Re- 
solved upon question, that the writ of habeas corpus may not be denied, but 
ought to be granted, to every man that is committed or detained in prison or 
otherwise restrained, though it be by the command op the King, the Privy 
Council, or any otJier, he praying the same. Passed without negative." 

"We also find on the Journal of the House of Lords this entry, made in 1704 : 



HIS SUCCESS IN LIFE. 99 

" Resolved, That every Englishman who is imprisoned by any authority icJiatso- 
ever, has an undoubted right by his agents or friends to apply for and obtain a 
w-iit of habeas corpus in order to procure his liberty by due course of law ;" and 
again in the same year it was said by the House of Lords with greater distinct- 
ness: "It has been allowed by the known common law, it is the right of 
every subject under restraint, upon demand, to have the writ of habeas corpus, 
and thereupon to be brought before some proper court where it may be examined 
whether he be detained for lawful cause." 

For more than two hundred years, no monarch of England has attempt- 
ed to suspend the habeas coriius. For more than two hundred years, it would 
have cost any King of England his crown, if he had dared to exercise such 
power. » 

The American Colonies were formed mostly by emigrants from England, and 
were subjects of the British crown. Hence the common law of England includ- 
ing the right to do process of law and the writ of habeas corjjus as understood 
and enjoyed in England, was in force in this country at the time of the Revolu- 
tion ; accordingly when our fathers framed the Constitution, they did not origi- 
nate or ordain those great rights. They speak of them as well understood facts 
and only allude to the habeas corpus in the Constitution in connection with a 
provision limiting the power of Congress to suspend it. Constitution, Art. 1, sec. 
9. In England, only Parliament can susi^end it, and that only for a limited and 
specified period. In the United States, only Congress can exercise that power 
and that, too, is limited to cases of invasion and rebellion when the public 
safety requires it. 

It was never claimed that the President could legally suspend the writ until 
the year 18G1. 

When it is considered that this Palladium of our liberties was wrested from 
executive power, it will be seen how absurd is the idea that the people would 
intrust it to the safe-keeping of the executive, or allow it to be even tempo- 
rarily suspended by any power other than their immediate representatives in 
Congress assembled. 

In the war of 1812, there was far more opposition to the war and to the 
administration than there is now. 

In the war ynth Mexico, one of the great political parties of that time was an 
avowed peace party, denounced the war, and did all in its power to embarrass 
the Administration. 

In the Shay insurrection, the whiskey rebellion, and the Dorr rebellion, we had 
armed rebels within our own Northern States. Yet in no one of those wars or 
in-surrections was the habeas coipus suspended ; much less was it sugg'ested that 
the President ought to or could exercise that power. 

During the progress of the famous Burr conspiracy, Mr. Jefferson, who was 
then President, communicated to the Senate the fact that a man arrested for 
treason had been released on habeas coiims. The Senate thereujjon passed a 
bill suspending the writ, and sent it to the House, but the House immediately 
rejected it by an almost unanimous vote. 

This is the only case in which Congress attempted to exercise the power of 
suspension, and this, as we have seen, failed. 

THE CONSTITUTION. 
The Constitution was framed by delegates appointed by the States, and was 
adopted by the peojile of the States. The Federal Government has no existence 
outside of the Constitution. It never would have existed unless created by the 

7 



100 ALLEN C. BEACH. 

States, and has therefore just so much, and no more, power than its creators, the 
States, gave it. Any exercise of power by the Federal Government, not granted 
and delegated to it by the people of the several States in the Constitution, is 
usurpation. But the Constitution does not delegate to the President power to 
suspend the habeas corpus. How, then, can he rightfully suspend it any more 
than you or I ? 

The Constitution (Article 10, Amendments) also expressly states that " The 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by 
it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 

" Being an instrument of limited and enumerated powers, it follows irresistibly 
that what is not conferred is withheld, and belongs to the State authorities, if 
invested by their constitutions of government respectively in them ; and if not so 
invested, it is retained by the people as a part of their residuary sovereignty." 
(Abridgment, Story's Com. on Const., p. 712.) 

WHAT THE COURT SAYS. 

Chief -Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court in the 
cases of BoUman and Swartout (4 Cranch, 101), says : " If at any time the public 
safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this (the habeas 
corpus) act in the Courts of the United States, it is for the Legislature to say so. 
That question depends on political considerations, on which the Legislature is to 
decide. Until the legislative will be expressed, this Court can only see its duty, 
and must obey the laws." The Chief -Justice of the United States, in his opinion 
in the Merryman case in 1861 (9 Am. Law Reg., 524-530), says : " He (the Presi- 
dent) certainly does not faithfully execute the laws if he takes upon himself 
legislative power by suspending the writ of habeas corpus.^'''' thus expressly deciding 
ISiat the act of suspending the habeas corpus is the exercise of legislative powers. 

THE POWER USURPED BY MR. LINCOLN. 

Violent hands were first laid upon this safeguard of liberty, in 1861, by Presi- 
dent Lincoln. He first assumed the power to arrest the citizen without due or 
any process of law — to convey the victim within some Government fortress, or 
guard him by a military force too strong to be overcome by the officers of the 
law and to set at defiance the law he had just solemnly sworn to see executed 
and enforced, and the Constitution he had sworn to protect and defend. 

In 1863, Congress, a majority of which were his pliant tools, pretended to 
enact a law delegating to the President power to suspend the writ of habeas cor- 
pus in the peaceful and law-abiding States of the Union, without any restriction 
or limitation as to time or place, except his judgment. 

Laws of the United States passed 1862, chap. 81, sec. 1. 

Accordingly the President did, on the 15th day of September, 1863, issue his 
proclamation, in which he declared the writ suspended. 

The able and eminent lawyers of the Republican party preserve an ominous 
silence. But now, as ever, there are found minions of power ready to justify any 
atrocity. Let us then examine the question. The proposition is, that one de- 
partment of Government may legally delegate the exercise of its peculiar func- 
tions to another department. 

CANNOT BE DELEGATED. 

It would seem that the bare statement of the proposition was its best refuta- 
tion. The Constitution creates three separate departments of Government — a 
legislative, a judicial, and an executive. 



HIS SUCCESS IN LIFE. 101 

It delegates to the legislative department power to pass laws ; to the judicial, 
power to expound and adjudicate ; and to the President, executive power. 

The Constitution defines and limits the powers and duties of each department. 
Neither department has any other or greater powers than are delegated to if by 
the Constitution. 

The Constitution does not delegate to any department the right or power to 
exercise the powers, or discharge the duties, of any other department. 

Hence the President has no more right to discharge the duties or exercise the 
powers of Congress, than Congress has to make legal adjudications, or than 
Courts have to exercise the pardoning power. It follows, therefore, that Con- 
gress cannot delegate to the President, and he cannot exercise, the power to 
suspend the habeas corpus. 

The Constitution of the United States provides (Article 1, Sec. 1) as follows : 

" All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the 
United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." 

The Constitution of the State of New York provides (Article 3, Sec. 1) as fol- 
lows : 

"The legislative powers of this State shall be vested in a Senate and As- 
sembly." 

So that by the Constitutions of this State and the United States, legislative 
powers are vested in and restricted to the legislative department. 

DECISIONS OF THE COURTS. 

On the 26th day of March, 1849, the Legislature of this State attempted to vio- 
late this principle, by passing an act to estabhsh free schools in this State, and 
referring to the electors of the State the question whether that act should be- 
come a law. The General Terms of the 2d and of the 5th Districts decided that the 
act was unconstitutional and void, and that the electors had no power to 
determine that question, and the Court of Appeals of this State affirmed both of 
those judgments. 

Judge Barculo, in pronouncing the opinion of the Court in one of those cases, 
says (15 Barb. 115, 116) : " Upon what principle, then, can the representative 
transfer to any other person or persons the power of making, or, what is tanta- 
mount, the power of breathing life and efficacy into laws ? Suppose they should 
attempt to clothe with this authority some individual, as the Governor or At- 
torney-General, would not the common-sense of the whole community be shocked 
at their dereliction of duty ? 

" And above all, he cannot delegate to others the trust which has been ex- 
pressly confided in him. 

'' Dclegnta jwfestcis nonfoteit delefjnti. Delegated power cannot be delegated, 
is a settled maxim of common law, in full force at the present day, and never 
more applicable than to the case of a legislator." 

In the opinion of the Court in the case in the 5th District (15 Barb. 128), 
which Court was composed of Judges Gridley, W. F. Allen, Pratt, and Hubbard, 
it is said by Judge Pratt, in delivering the unanimous opinion of the Court : 

" It is a weU-settled principle that when a trust or confidence is confided to 
any person or class of persons, the trustees cannot delegate the trust. And 
what trust, what confidence, is more sacred, more responsible, than the power to 
make the laws of a free people ? Upon the same question in the Court of Ajj- 
peals. the Court say (4 Selden, 491) : " The Legislature has no power to make a 
statute dependent on such a contingency, because it would be confiding to other.s 
that legislative discretion which they are bound to exercise themselves, and which 



102 ALLEN C. BEACH. 

they cannot delegate or commit to any other man or men to be exercised." The 
same principle has been recognized and upheld in the highest courts of Penn- 
sylvania and of Delaware. (6 Barr, 507.) ^ Eice v. Foster (4 Harrington, 479). 

And the Supreme Court of the United States decided in Haybum's case (2 
Dallas, 406-410, and Notes) that Congress has no constitutional power to impose 
on judicial officers any duties that are not strictly judicial. 

Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution (Abridgment, p. 483, sec. 
676), says: " It would seem, as the power is given to Congress to suspend the 
writ of habeas coii^us in cases of rebellion or invasion, that the right to jvidge 
whether the exigency had arisen must exclusively belong to that body. " (Con- 
gress.) 

But it is said that it is a militaiy uecessity^ — that the President should exercise 
these extraordinary powers. We can see no good, but great evil, as the result. 
There is no rebellion or invasion in the State of New York, and no resistance to 
the Courts, or their process, by any man or set of men except the Administration. 
No party in the Northern States proposes peace while the rebels are in arms. 
What, then, does divide the people ? Nothing but the unwise and unnecessary 
persistence of the Administration in violating the Constitution. The people are 
alarmed at such unwarrated exercise of power, and justly fear that it wiU gi'ow 
into a precedent. 

The language of all our great and good men has been uniform iipon this iJoint. 
Jvidge Bronson says (3 Comstock, 568) : " There is always some plausible rea- 
son for the latitudinarian constructions which are resorted to for the purpose of 
acquiring power ; some evil to be averted, or good to be attained, by jrashing the 
powers of the Government beyond their legitimate boundary. It is by yielding 
to such influences that Constitutions are gradually undermined and finally over- 
thrown. . . . One step taken by the Legislature or the judiciary in enlarg- 
ing the powers of the Government opens the door for another, which will be 
sure to follow, and so the process goes on until all respect for the fundamental 
law is lost, and the powers of the government are just what those in authority 
please to caU them." Mr. Justice Story, one of the most eminent jurists of the 
age, and one of the ablest judges of the United States Court, in his Commenta- 
ries on the Constitution (Abridgment, page 713) says: "What is to become of 
constitutions of government if they are to rest, not upon the plain import of 
their words, but upon conjectural enlargements and restrictions to suit the tem- 
porary passions and interests of the day ? Let us never forget that our consti- 
tutions of government are solemn instruments addressed to the common-sense 
of the people, and designed to fix and perpetuate their rights and liberties. 
They are not to be frittered away to please the demagogues of the day. They 
are not to be violated to gratify the ambition of political leaders ; they are to 
speak in the same voice now and forever ; they are of no man's private interpre- 
tation. They are ordained by the will of the people ; and can be changed only 
hj the sovereign command of the people." 

That sounds very much like the speeches of Governor Seymour, and yet, for 
so talking, he is branded as a traitor. 

Hear also what the Father of his Country said in that immortal address which 
seems almost to be imbued with the spirit of prophecy. He says : " It is impor- 
tant likewise that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution 
in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their re- 
spective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the power of one de- 
partment to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to con- 



HIS SUCCESS TX LIFE. 103 

solidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever 
the form of the government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of 
power and proneness to abuse it which predominate in the human heart, is .suffi- 
cient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal 
checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into dif- 
ferent depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against 
invasion of the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modem ; 
some of them in our own countiy and under our own eyes. 

•'To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the 
opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional 
powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the 
way which the Constitution designated. BuT LET there be no change by 
UsuiirATiON ; for though this may in one instance be the instrument of good, 
it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The pre- 
cedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or tran- 
sient benefit which the use can at any time yield." 

Washington made no reservation in favor of times of war or of military neces- 
sity, though he had recently conducted the country through a seven years' war, 
one of the most difficult and desperate recorded in history. 

Is it not too plain for controversy ; is it not established by history, by the Con- 
stitution, by the uniform practice of the government, by the decisions of the 
courts, and by the opinions of our ablest and best jurists and statesmen, that 
the habeas corpus is not and cannot be thus suspended ; that the exercise of that 
power without right, by the President, is a '• change by usurpation," a denial 
of a plain constitutional right ? President Lincoln, in his inaugural, pronounces 
the following judgment against himself and his party. He says : " Happily, the 
human mind is so constituted that no party can reach the audacity of denying 
any right plainly written in the Constitution. If, by mere force of numbers, a 
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it 
might in a moral point of view justifj' revolution." 

If power has made such immense strides over constitutional rights in two years, 
what are we to expect if we tamely submit to its continuance in that course in 
the indefinite future ? 

But it is said we should not embarrass the Government by raising such ques- 
tions. The government of the Constitution is the only government we can 
recognize. Any other is a usurpation, and not a government ; and we have the 
right to, and do say to the Administration — Do not you embarrass the true men of 
the Xorth, the Government and yourselves, by insisting upon the suspension and 
overthrow of our rights under any pretext whatever ? 

But they say, let us put down the rebellion first, and then we will talk of 
these questions. We, too, say put down the rebellion ; and we say it never can be 
put down by putting down the rights and liberties of loyal men. It is because 
we wish the rebellion put down, and the good old Union restored, that we implore 
the Administration and its friends not to take a course which must divide the 
North, unite the South, and make it doubtful whether the end \vill not be the 
subversion of constitutional government and the destiiiction of that right 
most sacred to every American citizen — liberty regulated by law. 

Mr. Beacli's name was first mentioned for the position of Lientennnt- 
Governor soon after tlie adjournment of the National DcMnocratic 
Convention. It was first brought out in the political columns of the 



104 ALLEN C. BEACH. 

New York World. This caused an inquiry in regard to liis abilities 
and character, which resulted in securing for hini advocates among 
those who had prior to this been entire strangers to him. 

As the delegates gathered at the Albany Convention, and were in- 
troduced to Mr. Beach, they became impressed with his manners 
and general bearing, while his universal reputation as a man of the 
strictest probity and high moral character gained him friends every- 
where. 

There were three candidates for this position in the Convention ; 
Allen C. Beach, A. P. Lanning, and Wm. J. Averill. It is generally 
supposed that Mr. Beach owed his nomination to the attack made 
upon his opponents, and the charges that were made that Mr, Lan- 
ning had entered into league with Tammany. All these " exposures " 
by the enthusiastic and imaginative gentlemen from Kings may have 
liastened the nomination of Mr. Beach, but it did not change the re- 
sult. Long before the balloting was reached, it was just as ap- 
parent as anything could be, that a majo-rity of the Convention pre- 
ferred Mr. Beach to either of the other candidates. It was also 
equally certain, that whenever there was any break in the supporters 
of either of the other candidates, they would go to Mr. Beach. The 
flurry in the Convention may have brouglit about the nomination one 
ballot sooner than it would, had not the attack been made. 

As it was, the nomination was made on the first ballot, the vote 
standing as follows : 

A. C. Beach 68 

A. P. Lanning 47 

W. J. Averill 9 

On the announcement of the result, Mr. Beach was loudly called 
for, and went forward and briefly addressed the Convention ; thanking 
them for the honor, the confidence and partiality they had shown him 
in giving him the nomination, and promised to do all in his power 
to advance the principles and interests of the Democratic party. 

On his arrival home, after the close of the proceedings of the Con- 
vention, he was met at the depot by a large number of citizens of 
Watertown, who gathei'ed there, irrespective of pai'ty, to welcome 
him. An address of welcome was delivered by James F. Starbuck, 
to which Mr. Beach briefly responded : 

Citizens op Watertown : — I thank you for this spontaneous expression of 
your kindness. I can find no fitting words in which to tell you how deeply I am 
affected by it and by the very flattering- terms in whij.h you have been pleased 
to convey that expression through the eloquent and esteemed fr How citizen 
who has spoken in your behalf. I came among you nearly twenty years 
ago, a stranger to you all. Through all those long years you have treated me 
with uniform kindness and consideration. Ever since my name was first publicly 



HIS SUCCESS IX LIFE. 105 

mentioned in connection with the office to which I have been nominated, it haa 
been the hope and the wish, I believe, of aU the citizens of Watertown that I 
should receive that nomination. At the Convention, every man who was there 
from Jefferson county, as well as a host of warm-hearted friends from other 
counties, labored in my behalf with the real enthusiasm of brothers ; and never, 
never while my memory remains, can I forget their devotion to me. Fellow-citi- 
zens, I never cast a vote anywhere except in Watertown. Of all people in the 
world, therefore, you best know my political record ; whether it is an honest one 
I leave to your judgment, and by that judgment I will cheerfully abide. The 
present condition of our country is certainly not a happy one. Immense burdens 
of debt and taxation are resting with cnishing weight upon the productive indus- 
try of our land. The relations of the States of our Union to each other and to 
the general Government, all concede are not what they should be. Let us, then, 
laying aside all passion, prejudice, and partisanship, endeavor to ascertain and 
adopt the wisest and surest means of restoring our beloved country to a con- 
dition of peace and prosperity. Again thanking you for this manifestation of 
your good-will, I wish you a very good-night. 

Mr. Beach's brief addres.s was received with rounds of applause, and 
the affiiir terminated greatly to the satisfaction of all who participated. 

There is a pleasure in tracing the career of men who have marched 
steadily onward from obscure positions in boyhood to those of influ- 
ence, prominence, and high trusts when they approach the prime of 
life. There is something grand in the course of a man who hasjchoseu 
the undeviating line of rectitude, has selected for himself an honora- 
ble position in society as his aim, and steadily moves forward in spite 
of all obstacles, unaided and alone, accomplishing that aim, and reach- 
ing such a prominence that the peojjle are glad to select him as their 
representative. Such a man is Allen C. Beach. Of humble parentage, 
he has made for himself a name and reputation to be envied, has strug- 
gled against adversity, educated himself, and has outstripped in the 
race for honors most of those who had all the appliances of wealth 
and influence to aid them. He is one of that class of men who work 
their way up in spite of adverse circumstances. There is about his 
history and his early career much that sounds like real romance, and 
many of those traits of character which stood forth so prominently in 
Franklin and other self-made men in the early days of our llepublic. 
A study of his early life instinctively draws a person to him, and 
wherever his traits of character are knoAvn they cannot fail to be ad- 
mired. "With all his energy, his industry, his integrity, and his great 
moral worth, he is a man of great modesty, and shows an entire ab- 
sence of arrogance in his nature. 

Mr. Beach has been for years prominently connected with the Ma- 
sonic Order at Watertown, and for some time at the head of the Chapter. 
He has in this connection received higher honors from the people of 
his own town than any other person connected with the Masonic fra- 
ternity at that place. 



OLIVER BASCOM. 



The Democratic nominee for Canal Commissioner, Mr, Bascom, is a 
native of the State of Vermont, and was born in 1815. But he acted 
on the idea that Vermont is a good State to be born in, but a better 
State to emigrate from. His parents left that State when he was but 
ten years old, and took up their residence in Washington county, 

Mr, Bascom is a man who has carved his own fortune. He com- 
menced life as a cleric in the mercantile business, and was afterwards 
in a transportation house. In 1841 he began business for himself, 
in the transf)ortation and forwarding line, for which his term as clerk 
had specially fitted him. In 1851 he entered into a partnership, and 
formed the firm of Bascom, Vauglm & Co. This house met with re- 
markable success, and in 1857 the business which it had obtained be- 
came so extensive that the firm was made the nucleus of the North- 
ern Transportation Company. Mr. Bascom was the secretary and 
treasurer of this company until 1862, when he temporarily retired and 
spent a short time in California. The success of this company is far 
beyond tliat of any other that has been organized, the dividends 
reaching from 20 to 25 per cent. Its prosperity is in a great meas- 
ure attributed to the ability and sagacity of Mr. Bascom. 

Since his return from California, he has been engaged in farming 
and in the lumber trade, and is one of the most successful business 
men in his section of the State. Everything that he has under- 
taken in his fife has been successful, and he is in every way quaUfied 
for the duties which the Democracy propose to place in his hands. 
In his long business career and extensive dealings he has kept his name 
without the least stain upon it. 

His business called his attention directly to the condition and the 
Avants of the canals. His knowledge on this point is practical, and it 
was for this reason that his nomination was pressed. His nomination at 
the Convention was opposed by the " Canal Ring," but earnestly 
urged by the business men of North-eastern New York. 

Mr. Bascom is now fifty-three years of age. He cast his first vote, 



OLIVER BASCOM. 107 

on arriving at his majority, for the Democratic ticket, and has never 
voted any other. He did not seek this nomination, but it was urged 
upon him, because of his peculiar fitness for the office. 

During the days of the Whig party, his town in Washington 
county gave 400 Whig majority, and yet he was nominated and 
elected Supervisor, overcoming by his personal popularity that ma- 
jority. When he first moved to Whitehall, there were only fifty 
Democrats in the town, to three Imndred and fifty Opposition. He 
has managed, since the commencement of the war, to turn it around 
to a Democratic town. He was twice elected Supervisor during the 
war, and was chairman of the committee to raise the money neces- 
sary to enable his town to fill the quota. In fact he had the entire 
responsibility of filling the quota on his shoulders. He has been four 
times elected Supervisor, running against Whig candidates in 1851 
and 1852, and against Republicans in 1803 and 1864. He ran for As- 
sembly a year or two since, and carried his own town by 400 majority, 
receiving 600 votes out of the 800 polled in the town. 

He received the nomination for Canal Commissioner on the first 
ballot, and that, too, against the opposition of what is known as the 
Canal Ring. He was last year prominently mentioned in the State 
Convention for the office of State Treasurer. 



DAVID B. MCNEIL. 



All of tliose politicians who have any recollection of tlie public 
men in this State, and possess any knowledge of the personnel of 
politics of ISTew York during the two terms that Andrew Jackson was 
President, will remember Col. D. B. McNeil, of Northern New York, 
He was a great favorite of General Jackson, a warm personal friend 
of Silas Wright, and for a long time one of tlie most prominent and 
influential politicians in North-eastern New York ; was appointed by 
Jackson, Collector of the Port of Plattsburgh during his first term as 
President, and reappointed at the commencement of the second term. 
He M^as, in fact, one of those men of strict integrity and unflinching 
honesty whom Jackson delighted to favor. 

Ttis gentleman was the father of the present Democratic candidate 
for State Prison Inspector, David B. McNeil, who was called junior 
until the death of the elder McNeil, within the last three or four 
years. He was born in Essex county, in this State, in 1818, and is there- 
fore only three years younger than the nominee for Canal Commissioner. 

In his boyhood days he saw many of the leading Democratic politi- 
cians and statesmen of this State. All who passed through that section 
invariably stopped at his fathei-'s house and talked over the afiairs of 
the country. He also had instilled in him those precepts and those 
ideas of political responsibilities and rectitude which should be ex- 
ercised by officials, but which, alas ! but too few of our ofiice-holders 
of the present time recognize. 

He was educated at the Plattsburgh Academy, and fitted for the mer- 
cantile business. He was not very successful in this line, and was 
appointed invoice-clerk in the New York Custom-house by Van Ness, 
and continued in the same capacity through the administration of 
that office by Cornelius W. Lawrence. Soon after he left the Cus- 
tom-house, he was made clerk at the Clinton Prison, a highly respon- 
sible position, which he held for seven years. He was subsequently 
five years in the Secretary of State's office, having jbeen called into 
service by D. R, Floyd Jones, and retained by his successor. Leaving 
the Secretary of State's office, he was appointed warden of the Auburn 



DAVID B. McXEIL. 109 

Prison, a position that he held sixteen montlis, when tlie Radicals ob- 
taining the power, turned him out. 

One of the most striking characteristics of his career as warden of 
that piison is found fully set forth in tlie Prison Reports to the Legis- 
lature, Avhere it is shown that under his management of the work, 
in the contracts for supplies, and the work of the men, he made the 
prison pay, during the last fiscal year in which he had charge, -Si 0,000 
over and above all expenses. The Radicals coming into power, turned 
him out of office ; and his Radical successor, during the very next year, 
run the prison behind $40,000. Under McNeil, it paid $16,000 in 
one year to the State. Under his Radical successor, it cost the State 
6^40,000 the very next year, a difference of $50,000 in one year in 
favor of McNeil's management. McNeil came out of office poor. As 
to his successor in that respect, we leave the matter to general rumor. 
One worked for the State as zealously and faithfully as he would have 
watched his own business, and great saving was the result. 

Mr. McNeil was nominated for State Prison Inspector in 1863, 
and again in 1864. He has stood with the Democracy as one of their 
faithful sentinels on the tower during the days of adversity, and 
they now propose to reward him. There is no man in the State 
whose expeiience has given him such an insight into the workings of 
our prisons, or who practically knows so well as he the wants of the 
prisons, and how they can be conducted so as to best subserve the 
interests of the State. 

Mr. McNeil is one of those conscientious men who are honest by 
education, by principle, and by practice, and one whom no amount 
of temptation would swerve from his line of duty, or cause him to de- 
viate a hair's breadth from official rectitude. There are too few men 
of that class in public life at the present time for the people to let the 
opportunity of selecting one go by. Were our offices all filled by 
men of his probity, our taxes would be less, the National debt would 
be on the decrease instead of increase, our currency would be equal 
to gold in value, and our government securities Avould not be hawked 
around the markets of Europe at a less price than is paid for those of 
Brazil or the Sick Man of the East. 



EDWIN OSCAR PERRIK 



The Democratic nominee for Clerk of the Court of Appeals, 
Edwin Oscar Perrin, was born at Springfield, Ohio, in 1822. His 
father was the Hon. Joseph Perrin, for a long time Judge of the 
Circuit Court of that district, and a Whig politician of considerable 
note. Joseph Perrin vvas a nativ^e of Maryland, moved to Kentucky, 
and there married a daughter of Maddox Fisher, of Lexington, and 
soon after moved to Springfield, Ohio. His father-in-law, or the 
maternal grandfather of the subject of this biography, inherited a 
large number of slaves ; and soon after the removal of the elder 
Perrin to Sjmngfield, Mr. Fisher followed, taking with him his slaves, 
and giving them their freedom on arriving there. 

Edwin Oscar Perrin, the subject of this sketch, was educated at the 
Springfield Academy, and studied law with the Hon. Samson Mason, 
who was member of Congress from that district for four or five terms. 

Young Perrin was admitted to the bar in 1842, when but twenty 
years of age, and during the following year removed to Memphis, 
Tennessee, where he entered upon the practice of his profession. He 
was reared and educated as a Whig. At the commencement of General 
Taylor's administration he was appointed Navy Agent and Purser of 
the Memphis Navy Yard, and held the position until the inauguration 
of Franklin Pierce. He then formed a partnership with a law firm 
at Memphis, and in 1854 came to New York city, to open a branch 
ofiice, the firm having entered extensively upon the business of 
making Southern collections for Northern merchants. The Avar 
coming on in 1861, broke up the business, when Mr. Perrin dissolved 
his connection Avith the Memphis firm, and remained North. 

In 1857 Mr. Perrin accompanied Gov. Robt. J. Walker to Kansas, 
and stumped the Territory with him against the Lecompton Con- 
stitution. On his return from Kansas he was twice nominated for 



E. 0. PERRi:^. Ill 

Assembly in Brooklyn, and defeated each time, owing to a split in the 
party, and two candidates running on one side. Immediately after the 
war broke out he was sent by Secretary Cameron, then in charge of 
the War Department, on a confidential mission to Xew Mexico, then 
being invaded by the rebels under General Sibley, and was with Kit 
Carson and his command during the latter part of 1861 and part of 
1862. Col. Carson paid him a high tribute for his fidelity and courage 
during that campaign. In a letter which he wrote to a Senator at 
Washington, Col. Carson, after reciting the risks and exposures which 
Mr. Perrin underwent in order to supply our troops with food, clothing, 
and equipments, aiid saying that "Mr. Perrin ran fifty chances of 
being scalped where he did one of escajje in his journeyings through 
that country where they both were stationed, swarming as it was 
with savage Indians and hostile rebels," says : 

If such voluntaiy exposures to danger, and such sacrifices for the cause of the 
country, is not sufficient proof of loyalty, fidelity, and devotion, nothing I can 
add will strengthen it. I repeat that no man in New Mexico ever questioned 
his courage and fidelity. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

C. CARSON, 
Late Col. Commanding. 

In the days of the Whig party he was always to be found on the 
stump during every canvass, and spoke side by side with such orators 
as James C. Jones, Meredith P. Gentry, Neil S. Brown, of Tennessee, 
and Tom Cor win, of Ohio, and stumped this State for Fillmore in 1856. 

He has been Secretary of a number of the State Conventions of the 
Democracy ; was a delegate to, and Secretary of, the Philadelphia 
Johnson Convention in 1866. Soon after the adjournment of that 
Convention he was appointed Assessor for the First District of this 
State, but the Senate refused to confirm his appointment. Sub- 
sequently he was appointed by President Jolinson Chief-Justice of the 
Supreme Court of Utah, and the Senate again rejected his nomination. 
He ran for the same ofiice for which he is now nominated, three 
years ago. 

He has been selected the Secretary of four National Democratic 
Conventions, and his voice has been heard from the platform of every 
Democratic State Convention that has been held of late years; 
and he has stumped the State in every recent campaign, stumping 
Maine with Douglas in 1860. 

He is a good speaker, and has been generally useful to the party. 







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